Book 15
1.25
The above is what has been said on the subject of winds and rains, the rising of rivers, and the inundation of plains.
1.26
We must describe these rivers in detail, with the particulars, which are useful for the purposes of geography, and which have been handed down to us by historians.
1.26
Besides this, rivers, being a kind of physical boundaries of the size and figures of countries, are of the greatest use in every part of the present work. But the Nile and the rivers in India have a superiority above the rest, because the country could not be inhabited without them. By means of the rivers it is open to navigation and capable of cultivation, when otherwise it would not be accessible, nor could it be occupied by inhabitants.
