Mizraim, as it stands in the Hebrew of Genesis, without the points, is Metzrim; and Metzr-im signifies "The encloser or embanker of the sea" (the word being derived from Im, the same as Yam, "the sea," and Tzr, "to enclose," with the formative M prefixed). If the accounts which ancient history has handed down to us of the original state of Egypt be correct, the first man who formed a settlement there must have done the very thing implied in this name. Diodorus Siculus tells us that, in primitive times, that which, when he wrote, "was Egypt, was said to have been not a country, but one universal sea." Plutarch also says (De Iside) that Egypt was sea. From Herodotus, too, we have very striking evidence to the same effect. He excepts the province of Thebes from his statement; but when it is seen that "the province of Thebes" did not belong to Mizraim, or Egypt proper, which, says the author of the article "Mizraim" in Biblical Cyclopoedia, "properly denotes Lower Egypt"; the testimony of Herodotus will be seen entirely to agree with that of Diodorus and Plutarch. His statement is, that in the reign of the first king, "the whole of Egypt (except the province of Thebes) was an extended marsh. No part of that which is now situate beyond the lake Moeris was to be seen, the distance between which lake and the sea is a journey of seven days." Thus all Mizraim or Lower Egypt was under water. This state of the country arose from the unrestrained overflowing of the Nile, which, to adopt the language of Wilkinson, "formerly washed the foot of the sandy mountains of the Lybian chain." Now, before Egypt could be fit for being a suitable place for human abode--before it could become what it afterwards did become, one of the most fertile of all lands, it was indispensable that bounds should be set to the overflowings of the sea (for by the very name of the Ocean, or Sea, the Nile was anciently called--DIODORUS), and that for this purpose great embankments should enclose or confine its waters. If Ham's son, then, led a colony into Lower Egypt and settled it there, this very work he must have done. And what more natural than that a name should be given him in memory of his great achievement? and what name so exactly descriptive as Metzr-im, "The embanker of the sea," or as the name is found at this day applied to all Egypt (WILKINSON), Musr or Misr? Names always tend to abbreviation in the mouths of a people, and, therefore, "The land of Misr" is evidently just "The land of the embanker." From this statement it follows that the "embanking of the sea"--the "enclosing" of it within certain bounds, was the making of it as a river, so far as Lower Egypt was concerned.