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The original texts of the passages cited by Mengotti, from Latin translations of Diodorus Siculus and Plutarch and from Pliny the Elder, do not by any means confirm this statement, though the most important of them, that from Diodorus Siculus, is, perhaps, not irreconcilable with it.
"History tells us," says Mengotti, "that the Nile became terrible and destructive to ancient Egypt, in consequence of being confined within elevated dikes, from the borders of Nubia to the sea.
See, on cryptogamic and other wood plants, Rossmassler, Der Wald, pp. 82 et seqq., and on the importance of such vegetables in checking the flow of water, Mengotti, Idraulica Fisica e Sperimentale, chapters xvi. and xvii.
Castellani supposes the computation of Mengotti to fall much below the truth, and there can be no doubt that a vastly larger quantity of earth and gravel is washed down from the Alps and the Apennines than is carried to the sea. Castellani, Dell Immediata Influenza delle Salce sul corso delle Acqua, i., pp. 42,43.
From early ages the Italian hydrographers have stood in the front rank of their profession, and the Italian literature of this branch of material improvement is exceedingly voluminous, exhaustive, and complete. "The science of rivers after the barbarous ages," says Mengotti, "may be said to have been born and perfected in Italy."
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