222 On the Arabian Frontier of Egypt. 



credited. And the reason Pliny gives for Ptolemy's not at- 

 tempting to cut his canal through the second barrier, — the 

 greater height of the Red Sea, — is the very thing that would 

 prevent the canal from flowing through the lake, had it been 

 cut. 



Fourthly, For, even if the junction were effected, the inter- 

 vening canal could never possibly be made to convey water 

 from the loiver basin into the higher sea. The greatest pre- 

 cautions must, on the conti-ary, be taken to prevent the sea 

 from pouring into the lower basin, via the canal, more salt 

 water than it contained already ; since the low basin would 

 then replace what it had lost by evaporation, partly with salt 

 water from one end, partly with fresh from the other, instead 

 of doing so wholly with fresh as before. Thus, the tendency 

 of such a junction, when effected, would rather be to increase 

 the saltness of the lake, than to sweeten it. 



Lastly, The large crystalline masses of salt,* found on the 

 plains and marshes that now remain from this dried-up gulf 

 basin, in such enormous quantities, that the Arabs of the 

 desert have for centuries past made it a productive article of 

 commerce, continue an unquestionable physical proof to this 

 day, that would, in itself, suffice to certify — that the waters 

 of that lake have never been sweetened at all. 



Thei'e being so many conclusive reasons against assigning 

 this position to the " so called Bitter Lakes" of Strabo ; — the 

 only hollows in the vicinity through which the canal could 

 have flowed, are the Crocodile lakes, t through which the 

 Etham river itself had flowed. 



* Descr.de I'Eg., Journal, vol. xi., 323, 324. Mem. de Le Pere, ib. p. 122. 

 Mem. De Dubois-Ayme, vol. xviii.p. 354 ; and of Devilliers, ib. p. 380, 381. 



t This position has been assigned to the Bitter-lakes by M. Dubois-Ayme, 

 and I regret not being able to coincide beyond this point with his hypothesis 

 on the ancient geography of the district ; neither as to the period when the open 

 sea was cut off from the gulf-basin, nor as to the site of Pliny's " Bitter foun- 

 tains." The former event he supposes may have been posterior even to the 

 time of Hadrian. In that case, an open sea, accessible to the tides, must have 

 extended to the Serapeum, in the time of Ptolemy ; thus, any excavations on the 

 shoal above Arsinoe would have been impossible, however shallow the water ; 

 and the 37} M.P. of Ptolemy's canal operations must be found exclusive of 

 this spot. This, M.. Dubois-Ayme is obliged to do. He suggests that the 



