'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From December 1854 to March 1856. (New Issue.) Edited by the Secretary. Volume XII.' [‎13] (32/258)

THE BITTER LAKES—THE NATRON LAKES.
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been seen by most of you who have made the journey overland. It seems to
have been formed by a sinking of the Delta up to close upon the shore, where a
barrier was left; it is at its lowest some six or eight feet below the Mediterranean,
and occupies an area of about 5,000 square miles, being about 30 across and 150
in length. It seems to have been a fresh water marsh in Pliny’s time, when the
Nile was admitted to it by Canal, and it was transformed into a lake. By the end
of last century it had become nearly dried up, and its ancient bed, remarkable for
its fertility, was irrigated by canals from the Nile. In 1788, during the siege of
Alexandria, then held by the French against the English, a letter was found on
the body of General Eoitz, expressing alarm lest the sea should be admitted to the
lake Mareotis, and the town deprived of fresh water. The hint was taken by the
British General, and the barrier cut across. The vast plain was immediately
submerged, the sites of 300 villages were flooded, and one of the most fertile and
profitable portions of Egypt—the very garden of the Nile—reduced to sterility.
For ten or fifteen miles the railway skirts or traverses the margin of the lake, so
as to bring it within the view of overland passengers betwixt Europe and the
East. Near the period of low Nile the waters of the lake are concentrated by
evaporation up close to the point of saturation, and vast sheets of salt of dazzling
whiteness, the reflection of which is seen in the sky far out at sea, spread over the
shallows round its borders, to be redissolved when the waters of the Nile are ad
mitted during the inundation. A benevolent Government or enterprising people
would speedily pump out the brine by steam, and restore the soil to its wonted
fertility by repeated washings from the Nile. As matters at present stand it is
likely to remain for ages, until the Nile silts it up to the level of the sea, a monu
ment of the cruelties wars of aggression inflict or compel, and of the apathy and
indifference of an administration which makes no attempt to heal the wounds after
they have been inflicted.
The Bitter Lakes occupy a series of hollows about 30 miles in length, 10 in
breadth, and 50 feet in depth, under high water mark in the narrow neck of land
intervening betwixt the Red and Mediterranean Seas. They seem at one time
to have formed the upper portion of the Gulf of Suez, which was cut off from
them by the rising of the desert barrier of about 13 miles, which now divides
them. The water now found in them is extremely salt and bitter—the result
of concentration. The Isthmus, which is only 70 miles from sea to sea, seems
within the last 4,000 years to have {^een subjected to frequent elevations and
depressions, the latest of which in all likelihood occured a considerable time
after the Exodus.
The Natron Lakes, in the upper part of the Delta, are also completely isolat
ed, and occupy a depression of considerable but uncertain depth. In summer
they are nearly saturated with salt, the muriate and subcarbonate of soda, or
the sea-salt and soda of commerce. In winter they rise, and become freshed,
from the percolation of the waters of the Nile, which appear to take about three
months to force a passage through the porous soil beneath*
Before noticing Palestine, close by the locality just being described, we
shall close the account of the known depressions in Africa with a notice of the