Modern Discoveries: Shall we have another Deluge? [pp. 545-557]

MODERN DISCOVERIES.
"The Complete System of Geography," by Emanuel Bowen, published a hundred years ago, in which are set down two lakes, which
correspond, in geographical position, to the two to which they gave
the names of Victoria Nianza and Albert Nianza to mark the
event?'
* A work just published in London-" The Nile's Tributaries of Abyssinia,"
by Sir Samuel Baker-throws more light on this interesting subject than we
have hitherto received, even from Speke and Grant.
It appears that though the two great lakes-Victoria Niariza and Albert
Nianza-in the centre of equatorial Africa, are the true sourcl.s of the Nile, yet
they have no influence whatever-further than keeping the waters of thie river
at a certain level in the dry seasons-in causing its well known periodical
overflows.
The author, who spent years of travel in the Nile regions of Africa, at last
solves that which has been a mystery since dawn of hist(ory, without which the
whole system of the Nile could not be said to be explo,red.- The inundations,
with their fertilizing effects, are wholly caused by the Abysvitan tributariesthe Settite, 1oyon, An.grab, Salaam and Atbara. "No one could explore their
tremendous torrents," says Sir Samuel, "without at once comprehending their
effects on the waters of the Nile. The magnificent chain of mountains from
which they flow is not a simple line of abrupt sides, but the precipitous slopes
are the walls of a vast plateau, that receives a prodigious rainfall in June, July,
August, until the middle of September, the entire drainage of which is carried
away by the above named channels to inundate Lower Egypt." He graphically
describes the sudden rising of those rivers, in the following lalnguage: "On the morning of the 24th of June, I stood on the banks of the noble
Atbara River at break of day. The wonder of the desert! Yesterday there was
a barren sheet of glaring sand with a fringe of withered bush and trees upon its
borders that cut the yellow expanse of the desert. For days we had journeyed
along the exhausted bed. All nature, even in nature's poverty, was most poor;
no bush could boast a leaf, no tree could throw a shade; crisp gums cracl'led
upon the stems of the mimosas, the sap dried upon the burst bark, sprung with
the withering heat of the simoom. In one night there was a mysterious change
-wonders of the mighty WNile-an army of waters was hastening to the wasted
river; there was no drop of rain, no thunder cloud in the horizon to give hope, all
had been dry and sultry; dust and desolation yesterday, to-day a mnagniiificent
stream some 500 yards in width, and from 15 to 20 feet in depth, flowed through
the dreary desert! Bamboos and reeds, with traslh of all kinds, were hurried
along the muddy waters. Wheie were all the crowded inhabitants of the pool?
The prison doors were broken, the prisoners were released, and rejoiced in the
mightyv stream of the Atbara."
Describing the fertilizing properties of the deposit of the Nile, he betray s the
bent of the English mind, which looks anywhere on earth for a supply of cot ton-even to the Arab, to whom tribute would be willingly paid-rather than
to America.
"Egypt remains in the same position that nature originally allotted to her;
the life-giving stream that flows through 1,000 miles of burning sa,nds suddenly
rises in July and floods the D)elta, which it has formed by a deposit during, per haps, hundreds of thousands of similar ilnundations; and it wastes a superabun dance of fertilizing mud in the waters of the Mediterranean. As nature hlas thus
formed and is still forming a delta, lwhy should not science create a delta witih
the powerful means at our disposal? AWhyI should not the mud of the Nile, that
now silts up the Mediterranean, be directed to the barren but vast area of deserts
that, by such a deposit, would become a fertile portion of Egypt? This work
might be accomplished by simple means. The waters of the Nile, that now rush
impetuously at certain seasons with overwhelming violence, while at other sea
sons they are exhausted, might be so controlled that they should never be in ex cess, neither would they be reduced to a min7iie?ti in the dry season; but the
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