237 



first and indispensable step was to procure the aid of a competent 

 person to conduct his projected operations, and he was fortunate in 

 obtaining the active and intelligent aid of an Armenian gentleman, 

 educated and long resident in England, Hekekyan Bey, a civil engi- 

 neer, who had occupied some important positions in the service of 

 the Viceroy Mehemet Ali, especially as chief of the Polytechnic 

 School in Cairo. But nothing could be done without the consent 

 of the then Viceroy Abbas Pacha, more especially as the spot the 

 author had selected for his first operations was in a garden of the 

 Pacha. By the active intervention of Her Majesty's Consul- General 

 in Egypt, the Honourable Charles Augustus Murray, not only was 

 the Viceroy's consent obtained, but his Highness was pleased to 

 direct his ministers to place at the disposal of Hekekyan Bey what- 

 ever was necessary to conduct the operations in the most complete 

 manner ; and, with truly royal munificence, ordered that the whole 

 expense of them should be defrayed by his Treasury. The author 

 never contemplated having the means of making these researches on 

 more than a very limited scale, but he had now the prospect, and it 

 has since been realized, of their being conducted on a very enlarged 

 plan. 



It has been often a subject of regret that experiments of this na- 

 ture, of which the French had set an example half a century ago, 

 had not been followed up. On this subject the author remarks, that 

 the operations are of a nature that scarcely any individual traveller 

 could undertake ; for they require a large body of men, some prac- 

 tised in the art of surveying, and as they can only be carried on con- 

 tinuously after the inundation waters have subsided for some time, 

 and therefore at a season of the year when the heat is excessive, 

 those only inured to the climate could stand the work. 



The place selected for commencing the operations was at the 

 Obelisk of Heliopolis, about six miles below Cairo, the oldest known ; 

 erected, according to Lepsius, 2300' years before Christ. The au- 

 thor having given Hekekyan Bey full and minute directions as to 

 the manner in which the researches were to be carried on, the ob- 

 servations to be made, the plans and reports to be drawn up, and 

 the specimens of soils sunk through to be selected, the operations 

 commenced in June 1851. Sixty men were employed under the 

 direction of Hekekyan Bey, assisted by an officer of Artillery, and 

 some young engineers from the Polytechnic School in Cairo. 



