Indeed For My Part I
Am Of The Opinion That It Would Be Filled Up Even Within Ten Thousand
Years.
How, then, in all the time that has elapsed before I came into
being should not a gulf be filled up even of much greater size than
this by a river so great and so active?
As regards Egypt then, I both
believe those who say that things are so, and for myself also I am
strongly of opinion that they are so; because I have observed that
Egypt runs out into the sea further than the adjoining land, and that
shells are found upon the mountains of it, and an efflorescence of
salt forms upon the surface, so that even the pyramids are being eaten
away by it, and moreover that of all the mountains of Egypt, the range
which lies above Memphis is the only one which has sand: besides which
I notice that Egypt resembles neither the land of Arabia, which
borders upon it, nor Libya, nor yet Syria (for they are Syrians who
dwell in the parts of Arabia lying along the sea), but that it has
soil which is black and easily breaks up, seeing that it is in truth
mud and silt brought down from Ethiopia by the river: but the soil of
Libya, we know, is reddish in colour and rather sandy, while that of
Arabia and Syria is somewhat clayey and rocky. The priests also gave
me a strong proof concerning this land as follows, namely that in the
reign of king Moiris, whenever the river reached a height of at least
eight cubits it watered Egypt below Memphis; and not yet nine hundred
years had gone by since the death of Moiris, when I heard these things
from the priests:
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