THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 663
becaufe we are now perfectly certain, from obfervation, that Democritus and Agatharcides both of them had fallen upon the true caufes of the inundation.
I shall now mention a treatife of a modern philofopher^ wrote expreisly upon this fubjecl, I mean a difcourfe on the caufes of the inundation of the Nile, by M. de la Chambre, printed at Paris in quarto, 1665, where, in a long dedica,- tion, he modeftly allures the king, he is perfuaded that his majefty will confider, as one of the glories of his reign, the difcovery of the true caufe of the Nile's inundation, which he had then made, after it had baffled the inquiry of all philofophers for the fpace of 2000 years ; and, indeed, the caufe and the difcovery would have been both very remark- able, had they been attended with the leaft degree of poili- bility. M. de la Chambre fays, that the nitre with which the ground in Egypt is impregnated, ferments like a kind of pafle, occafioning the Nile to ferment likewife, and thus increafes the mafs of water fo much, that it fpreads over the whole land of Egypt. .
Far be it from me to bear hard upon th'ofe attempts with which the ancients endeavoured to folve thofe phs*- nomena, when, for want of a fufficient progrefs in experi- mental philofophy and obfervation, they were generally deilitute of the proper means ; . but there is no cxcufe for a man's either believing or writing, that earth, impregnated with fo fmall a quantity of any mixture as not to be dif- cernible to the eye, fmell, or tafte, could periodically fwell the waters of a river, then almoft dry, to fucli an immen- fity, as to cover the whole plains of Egypt, and difcharge millions of tons every day into the fea, at the fame time
that
