Dr. E. D. Clark, the traveller, who has paid great attention to the study of the age and design of ancient monuments, thinks that the _shaft_ of Pompey's Pillar "is of much earlier antiquity than either the _capital_ or the _pedestal_." He gives probable reasons to believe that the _shaft_ was made in the time of _Alexander the Great_, the founder of _Alexandria_, and who was buried there, to be a sepulchral pillar to the memory of that monarch; but that _Julius Caesar_ had set it upon a _pedestal_, and had put a _capital_ upon it in honour of Pompey, whose head he caused to be burnt with funeral honours, and the ashes put into an _urn_, and placed on the top of the _pillar_: but that the _pillar_ had likely fallen afterwards, and had been restored by the emperor _Hadrian_.--_Clarke's Travels, 4th Edit._ 8vo. vol. v. ch. vii. p. 361, &c. Footnote 12: Or Sed; "sometimes called the Lake of Aboukir. The passage into it at Aboukir, is about two hundred yards wide, and was made about the year 1782, by the sea breaking down the dyke, which had been built ages back, to recover from the ocean that part of the country which now is Lake Maadie." _History of the Expedition to Egypt_, p. 27. Footnote 13: This canal commences at Rhamanieh, on the banks of the Nile, and passes over fifteen or sixteen leagues of country. The bed of it is above the level of Egypt; the banks are formed of earth raised wholly above the surface. There is no water in it, but at the time of the inundation of the Nile. The beds of the canals in Egypt are all above the level of the country, that, when cut, the water may run out of them. They are properly canals of irrigation. Footnote 14: This wind was still more dreadful in the interior of the country; and at the place where the army was on its march to Cairo; as appears by the following extract from Sir R. Wilson's History of the Expedition to Egypt, vol. 1. p. 177. _ALGUM, 23d May._ "This day will ever be remarkable to the Egyptian army; a sirocco wind darkened with a burning mist the atmosphere; the thermometer was at 120 in the shade; the ground was heated like the floor of a furnace; every thing that was metallic, such as arms, buttons; knives, &c. became burning hot; the poultry, exposed to the air, and several horses and camels died; respiration was difficult, and the lungs were parched with fiery particles. Had the heat continued forty-eight hours, the effect would have been dreadful: but happily as night drew on, the wind cooled, and at last changed to the north west. "At Balbeis, the thermometer was at 130; on the western side of the Nile 120; at Alexandria 105." _Extract from a Journal written by one of my comrades._