38 On the Arabian Frontier of Effi/pt. 



The remains of another nearETllAM are still called " Birket 

 el Haj el Kadim," the former Lake of Pilgrims. 



In making these allowances for the effects of time between 

 the relative positions of the variable and invariable levels, it 

 may also be as well to remark, that although the present 

 genei'al surface of the same valley may represent the ave- 

 rage level of the corresponding parts of the Delta about 

 Bubastis, in the time of Necho, the difference between this 

 average surface at that time, and at the earlier period repre- 

 sented in the map, cannot have been very considerable, be- 

 cause the sedimentary depositions of the river, in a district 

 so constituted, would sink into the deep hollows, and equalize 

 the form of the bottom, rather than elevate its general sur- 

 face. Hollows which in the time of Moses were deep lakes, 

 may have become the slight depressions we now find tliem. 

 But, owing to the subsequent elevation of the surfaces of 

 land and water, in the parts which the inundations have been 

 allowed to reach, since their exclusion from this valley 

 twenty-two centuries ago, it has become — relatively to them 

 — so much lower, that if the Nile were now freely readmitted 

 into the valley, it would form a long shallow lake. 



As we can now hardly entertain a doubt of the former ex- 

 istence and artificial excision of the Etham branch of the 

 Nile, since the main fact that it would still exist, were it not 

 artificially suppressed, stands upon physical proofs that speak 

 for themselves, the secondary task of following it up along 

 its entire course, from the extreme points of its origin and 

 its embouchure, will not present any material difficulties ; as 

 of these, satisfactory tokens are by no means wanting. 



There is a great dyke connecting the mound of Onion with 

 that of Scenw, at " Tel el Jehud." Beyond this point, the 

 water-line, as we before remarked, is intentionally kept down 

 to a very much lower level than is natural, along a series of 

 small and shallow canals of ii'rigation, one of which is the 

 remains of the canal made by Ptolemy Philadelphus, that fell 

 into Necho's canal at Thoum (or Etham) near the modern 

 Abbasieh. At this place, the water is now altogether cut off 

 from the remainder of the valley, after having been reduced 

 in height by other intermediate dykes. 



