king's treasury from the fish; but when the water is flowing into it, 20 minæ (£80).

The people of the country told me that this Lake discharges itself under ground into the Syrtis of Libya, running westward towards the interior by the mountain above Memphis. But when I did not see anywhere a heap of soil from this excavation, for this was an object of curiosity to me, I inquired of the people who lived nearest the Lake, where the soil that had been dug out was to be found; they told me where it had been carried, and easily persuaded me, because I had heard that a similar thing had been done at Nineveh, in Assyria. For certain thieves formed a design to carry away the treasures of Sardanapalus, king of Nineveh, which were very large, and preserved in subterranean treasuries; the thieves, therefore, beginning from their own dwellings, dug under ground by estimated measurement to the royal palace, and the soil that was taken out of the excavations, when night came on, they threw into the river Tigris, that flows by Nineveh, until they had effected their purpose. The same method I heard was adopted in digging the Lake in Egypt, except that it was not done during the night, but during the day; for the Egyptians who dug out the soil carried it to the Nile, and the river receiving it, soon dispersed it. Now this Lake is said to have been excavated in this way."

Diodorus says (i. 51, 52): "Meris came to the crown of Egypt, and built a portico in Memphis towards the north, more stately and magnificent than any of the rest. And, a little above the city he cut a dyke for a pond, bringing it down in length from the city 325 furlongs, whose use was admirable, and the greatness of the work incredible. They say it was in circumference 3,600 furlongs; and in many places 300 feet in depth. Who is he, therefore, that considers the greatness of this work, that may not justly ask the question-How many ten thousand

men were employed, and how many years were spent in finishing it? Considering the benefit and advantage (by this great work) brought to the government, none ever sufficiently could extol it, according to what the truth of the thing deserved. For, being that the Nile never kept to a certain and constant height in its inundation, and the fruitfulness of the country ever depended upon its just proportion, he dug this lake to receive such water as was superfluous, that it might neither immoderately overflow the land, and so cause fens and standing ponds, nor by flowing too little, prejudice the fruits of the earth for want of water. To this end he cut a trench along the river into the Lake, 80 furlongs in length, and 300 feet broad; into this he let the water of the river sometimes run, and at other times diverted it, and turned it over the fields of the husbandmen, at seasonable times, by means of sluices which he sometimes opened, and at other times shut up, not without great labour and cost; for these sluices could not be opened or shut at a less charge than 50 talents. This lake continues to the benefit of the Egyptians for these purposes to our very days, and is called the Lake of Myris or Meris to this day.

The king left a place in the middle of the lake, where he built a sepulchre and two pyramids, one for himself, and another for his queen, a furlong in height; upon the top of which he placed two marble statues seated on a throne, designing, by these monuments, to perpetuate the fame and glory of his name to all succeeding generations. The revenue arising from the fish taken in this lake, he gave to his wife to buy her dresses, which amounted to a talent of silver every day. For there were in it two-and-twenty sorts of fish, and so vast a number were taken, that those who were employed continually to salt them up, (although they were multitudes of people), could hardly perform it. And these are the things which the Egyptians relate of Meris."

Strabo says (XVIII, 1, 35): "The Herakleopolitan nome has also the remarkable Lake Moeris, which in extent is a sea, and the colour of its waters resembles that of the sea. Its borders are also like the sea-shore, so that we may make the same suppositions respecting these as about the country near Ammon. For they are not very far distant from one another and from Parætonium; and we may conjecture from a multitude of proofs, that as the temple of Ammon was once situated upon the sea, so this tract of country also bordered on the sea at some former period. The Lake Moeris, by its magnitude and depth, is able to sustain the superabundance of water which flows into it at the time of the rise of the river, without overflowing the inhabited and cultivated parts of the country. On the decrease of the water of the river, it distributes the excess by the same canal at each of the mouths; and both the lake and the canal preserve a remainder, which is used for irrigation. These are the natural and independent properties of the Lake, but in addition, on both mouths of the canal are placed locks, by which the engineers store up and distribute the water which enters or issues from the canal."

According to Pliny (v. 9), Lake Moeris was artificially constructed, and was made by king Moeris; it was 250 miles (Mucianus says 450 miles) in circumference, and 50 paces deep.

What, however, concerns us most here is the fact that Major Brown believes that Lake Moeris was nothing more than the Fayyûm in a submerged state, and thus he supports the opinion on the subject which was tolerably general before Linant temporarily overthrew it. He thinks that "the submerged Fayûm, with the entry and exit of its waters kept under control by regulators, and its water-levels ranging between Reduced Level 22.50 and 19.50, was the Lake Moeris of Herodotus," and that

"the Lake was not artificially made, as supposed by Herodotus, but was brought under control by the works of man." In the face of such definite statements by so eminent an authority as Major Brown it is clear that we must give up our old belief in the existence of an artificial Lake Moeris, and believe that Herodotus mistook the flooded Fayyûm, or the Great Canal, the Bahr Yûsuf, for a lake and believed the roads which intersected the basins to be its containing walls. This is, of course, quite possible, for Herodotus had no great experience of Egypt when the Nile was in flood, and he may easily have been misled by natives, who plied him with stories the exact importance of which they did not themselves fully understand. In any case, the Fayyûm can never, according to Major Brown's facts, have contained a Lake Moeris with the depth and area which Herodotus declares the "lake" he described to have had. It seems also that we must give up our belief in the existence of the Labyrinth, and Prof. Maspero has shown that it was nothing more than a town full of small houses which were inhabited by the workmen who built the pyramids in the neighbourhood.

The views as to the site of Lake Moeris which have been generally accepted during the past forty years are derived from the well-known work which Linant de Bellefonds published on the subject in 1872. Archæologists and scholars in general, knowing nothing of irrigation engineering, could only accept what was set before them by a professional engineer who wrote in good faith, especially as not one in a hundred who wrote about Egypt had ever seen the Fayyûm. In 1892 Major R. H. Brown, R.E., published a work on the "Fayum and Lake Moeris," and in this he submitted Linant's views to a strict examination, and showed that his theory was untenable. It is unnecessary here to give the details, but, speaking generally, "Linant maintained. that Lake Moeris occupied the gap in the hills by which the

Bahr Yûsuf enters the Fayûm, (sic) and covered the so-called 'plateau' on the south-east of Medineh, the encircling bank commencing at its north-east end at Edwah, and being continued through El-Alam, Biahmu, Zowyet-el-Karatsah, to Medineh." Thus, as Major Brown notes, “the Linant Lake covers the richest land in the Fayûm," and, "the remainder of the best land round the margins and for a considerable distance from the Linant Lake banks would have been probably ruined by infiltration. The perimeter of Linant's Lake is 96 kilometres (60 miles). Its correct area is 257,800,000 square metres, though Linant gave the area at 405,479,000 square metres. Herodotus made the circuit of Lake Moeris to be 450 miles or 720 kilometres, but Linant only gave his lake a circuit of 110 kilometres; its depth according to Herodotus was 92 metres, but according to Linant it was only 9.60 metres. According to actual levels the greatest depth would be 18.60 metres! Major Brown next goes on to shew that Linant's data are erroneous, and in his hands the theory falls to pieces.

The Pyramid of Hawara was the tomb of Amen-em-hat III.; it is built of sun-dried bricks, and even now is of considerable size. It was entered in 1890 on the south side by Prof. Petrie, who discovered the mummy chamber; the remains of what must have been the funerary temple were also found near the entrance. The Pyramid of Al-lâhûn was entered by Mr. W. Fraser, who found it to be the tomb of Usertsen II.; like the Pyramid of Ḥawâra it is built of sun-dried bricks. The Labyrinth stood on the banks of Lake Moeris, and some have identified the ruins of the funerary temple of Amen-em-ḥāt with it. Strabo (xvii. 1. § 37) declared that the tomb of the king who built the Labyrinth was near it, and describes it thus: "After proceeding beyond the first entrance of the canal about 30 or 40 stadia, there is a table-shaped plain, with a village and a large palace composed of as many palaces as