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BARK OF THE SUN IN THE FIRST HOUR OF THE NIGHT.
“This water (which the sun is now navigating) is the pool of Natron which is joined with the pool of the field of the great hall of judgment.” . . . “Moreover the waters of the great hall of judgment are joined with the waters of Abydos, and they (together) are called the way along which father Athom travels . . . when he approaches the mountains of his rising.”
The pool of Natron mentioned in this text, is the valley which lies to the north-west of Heliopolis, so well known to modern geographers as the valley of the Natron lakes, which in the opinion of many travellers was, at some remote period, one of the principal mouths of the Nile. There are many geographical indications in this part of Egypt, that the Nile once ran to the Mediterranean considerably more to the westward than at present. Herodotus also relates,[1] that Menes the builder of Memphis, diverted the course of the river by means of embankments, for the purpose of draining the marshes which lay to the west of his new city. The strange absurdity of the wild legend em-
- ↑ Euterpe, c. 10.
