Sands of Egypt

The sand let fall in Egypt by the north wind is derived, not from the desert, but from a very different source—the sea. Considerable quantities of sand are thrown up by the Mediterranean, at and between the mouths of the Nile, and indeed along almost the whole southern coast of that sea, and drifted into the interior to distances varying according to the force of the wind and the abundance and quality of the material. The sand so transported contributes to the gradual elevation of the Delta, and of the banks and bed of the river itself. But just in proportion as the bed of the stream is elevated, the height of the water in the annual inundations is increased also, and as the inclination of the channel is diminished, the rapidity of the current is checked, and the deposition of the slime it holds in suspension consequently promoted. Thus the winds and the water, moving in contrary directions, join in producing a common effect.

The sand, blown over the Delta and the cultivated land higher up the stream during the inundation, is covered or mixed with the fertile earth brought down by the river, and no serious injury is sustained from it. That spread over the same ground after the water has subsided, and during the short period when the soil is not stirred by cultivation or covered by the flood, forms a thin pellicle over the surface as far as it extends, and serves to divide and distinguish the successive layers of slime deposited by the annual inundations. The particles taken up by the wind on the sea beach are borne onward, by a hopping motion, or rolled along the surface, until they are arrested by the temporary cessation of the wind, by vegetation, or by some other obstruction, and they may, in process of time, accumulate in large masses, under the lee of rocky projections, buildings, or other barriers which break the force of the wind.

In these facts we find the true explanation of the sand drifts, which have half buried the Sphinx and so many other ancient monuments in that part of Egypt. These drifts, as I have said, are not primarily from the desert, but from the sea; and, as might be supposed from the distance they have travelled, they have been long in gathering. While Egypt was a great and flourishing kingdom, measures were taken to protect its territory against the encroachment of sand, whether from the desert or from the sea; but the foreign conquerors, who destroyed so many of its religious monuments, did not spare its public works, and the process of physical degradation undoubtedly began as early as the Persian invasion. The urgent necessity, which has compelled all the successive tyrannies of Egypt to keep up some of the canals and other arrangements for irrigation, was not felt with respect to the advancement of the sands; for their progress was so slow as hardly to be perceptible in the course of a single reign, and long experience has shown that, from the natural effect of the inundations, the cultivable soil of the valley is, on the whole, trenching upon the domain of the desert, not retreating before it.

The oases of the Libyan, as well as of many Asiatic deserts, have no such safeguards. The sands are fast encroaching upon them, and threaten soon to engulf them, unless man shall resort to artesian wells and plantations, or to some other efficient means of checking the advance of this formidable enemy, in time to save these islands of the waste from final destruction.

Accumulations of sand are, in certain cases, beneficial as a protection against the ravages of the sea; but, in general, the vicinity, and especially the shifting of bodies of this material, are destructive to human industry, and hence, in civilized countries, measures are taken to prevent its spread. This, however, can be done only where the population is large and enlightened, and the value of the soil, or of the artificial erections and improvements upon it, is considerable. Hence in the deserts of Africa and of Asia, and the inhabited lands which border on them, no pains are usually taken to check the drifts, and when once the fields, the houses, the springs, or the canals of irrigation are covered or choked, the district is abandoned without a struggle, and surrendered to perpetual desolation.