Nature’s operations are, however, so uniform that these calamities rarely arise.  Egypt rejoices, more than almost any other country, in an equable climate, an equable temperature, and an equable productiveness.  The summers, no doubt, are hot, especially in the south, and an occasional sirocco produces intense discomfort while it lasts.  But the cool Etesian wind, blowing from the north through nearly all the summer-time, tempers the ardour of the sun’s rays even in the hottest season of the year; and during the remaining months, from October to April, the climate is simply delightful.  Egypt has been said to have but two seasons, spring and summer.  Spring reigns from October into May—­crops spring up, flowers bloom, soft zephyrs fan the cheek, when it is mid-winter in Europe; by February the fruit-trees are in full blossom; the crops begin to ripen in March, and are reaped by the end of April; snow and frost are wholly unknown at any time; storm, fog, and even rain are rare.  A bright, lucid atmosphere rests upon the entire scene.  There is no moisture in the air, no cloud in the sky; no mist veils the distance.  One day follows another, each the counterpart of the preceding; until at length spring retires to make room for summer, and a fiercer light, a hotter sun, a longer day, show that the most enjoyable part of the year is gone by.

The geology of Egypt is simple.  The entire flat country is alluvial.  The hills on either side are, in the north, limestone, in the central region sandstone, and in the south granite and syenite.  The granitic formation begins between the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth parallels, but occasional masses of primitive rock are intruded into the secondary regions, and these extend northward as far as lat. 27 deg.10’.  Above the rocks are, in many places, deposits of gravel and sand, the former hard, the latter loose and shifting.  A portion of the eastern desert is metalliferous.  Gold is found even at the present day in small quantities, and seems anciently to have been more abundant.  Copper, iron, and lead have been also met with in modern times, and one iron mine shows signs of having been anciently worked.  Emeralds abound in the region about Mount Zabara, and the eastern desert further yields jaspers, carnelians, breccia verde, agates, chalcedonies, and rock-crystal.

The flora of the country is not particularly interesting.  Dom and date palms are the principal trees, the latter having a single tapering stem, the former dividing into branches.  The sycamore (Ficus sycamorus) is also tolerably common, as are several species of acacia.  The acacia seyal, which furnishes the gum arable of commerce, is “a gnarled and thorny tree, somewhat like a solitary hawthorn in its habit and manner of growth, but much larger.”  Its height, when full grown, is from fifteen to twenty feet.  The persea, a sacred plant among the ancient Egyptians, is a bushy tree or shrub, which attains the height of eighteen or twenty feet under