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of Herodotus. 4. The depth of the Faium lake is very consi-
derable, though never yet ascertained. 5. The soil around it is
dry (avuSpo?), and the shores have more the appearance of the sea-
coast than any other banks in Egypt. 6. The fish which abound
in it are supplied from the Nile at the time of the inundations.
7. Its greatest length, i. e. where it is now called the Bahhr Jou-
souf, is from North to South. 8. This takes a bend to the West, i. c.
where it communicates with the Faium lake, and it is continued
along the hills above Memphis in a direction towards Libya.
9. Its greatest distance from Memphis agrees with the six hun-
dred stadia of Diodorus. 10. It communicates with the Nile by
a wide canal at least ten miles long. 11. The Bahhr Jousouf,
which appears to be the canal mentioned by Strabo as having
two mouths, and as communicating with the Maoris, encloses the
island in which was the llcraeleotic noine. 12. The expression of
" lacusfuit," used by Pliny, may easily be interpreted as referring
to the neglected state in which in his time the Bahhr Jousouf
and the canals between it and the Faium lake may have been
left. 13. The story of a subterranean current from the Maoris into
the Libyan Syrtis easily arose from the observation which the
Egyptians must have made, that even in the dry season, when
the communication with the Nile had ceased, the level of the
water in the lake still continued to fall. There are many other
instances wherein the phamomenon of evaporation has been ac-
counted for in a similar manner.

Whatever may be the truth of these positions, the application
of the name of Maoris to the Bathen is rendered particularly pro-
blematical, from the circumstance of there being now scarcely
any traces of such a canal having ever existed at all; certainly
not in the confined and precise form which D'Anville has given
to it in his map. Indeed his countryman Denon, to whose exer-

2 q 2 tions