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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1871 Excerpt:...since so great an undertaking could only have been the result of long experience. These dykes were succeeded or accompanied by the invention of sluices, and all the mechanism appertaining to them; the regulation of the supply of water admitted into plains of various levels, the report of the exact quantity of land irrigated, the depth of the water, and the time it continued upon the surface, which determined the proportionate payment of the taxes, required much scientific skill; and the prices of provisions for the ensuing year were already ascertained by the unerring prognostics of the existing inundation. Hence they were led to make minute observations respecting the increase of the Nile during that season: Nilometers, for measuring its gradual rise or fall, were constructed in various parts of Egypt, and particular persons were appointed to observe each daily change, and to proclaim the favourable or unfavourable state of this important phenomenon. On these reports depended the time chosen for opening the canals, whose mouths were closed until the river rose to a fixed height; upon which occasion grand festivities were proclaimed throughout the country, in order that every person might show his sense of the great benefit vouchsafed by the Gods to the land of Egypt. The introduction of the waters of the Nile into the interior, by means of these canals, was allegorically construed into the union of Osiris and Isis; the instant of cutting away the dam of earth which separated the bed of the canal from the Nile was looked forward to with the utmost anxiety; and many omens were consulted in order to ascertain the auspicious moment for this important ceremony. Superstition added greatly to the zeal of a credulous people. The Deity, or presiding Genius, of the...