Week 3

 This is an excerpt from a work by Benoit de Maillet, who died long before the Revolution, but whose perspective is lumped in with C.F. Volney. This book was published posthumously in 1748, ten years after his death, and then again in 1797, in time for Napoleon's campaign in Egypt.

Telliamed, Or, The World Explain'd:Containing Discourses Between an Indian Philospher and a Missionary, on the Diminution of the Sea, the Formation of the Earth, the Origin of Men & Animals : and Other Singular Subjects, Relating to Natural History & Philosphy ; a Very Curious Work. 

Benoit de Maillet W. Pechin, no. 15, Market-Street, 1797

P. 138 

Of the lofty and vast Alexandria, which extended from the Bigueirs to the tower of the Arabians, forty Italian miles, there now remains no more than some pillars standing or thrown down, and some cisterns found in the middle of the mountains composed of their own ruins. The present Alexandria, which only contains some refugees from Barbary and Morea, is not so much as situated with the bounds possessed by ancient Alexandria, since it is built upon the sand which has filled up the ancient harbour of that city.