516 ■ Reviews — BeadneWs Geologij of the Faydm, Egypt. 



III. — Egyptian Geological Survey. 



The Topography and Geology of the Fayum Province of 



Egypt. By H. J. L. Beadnell, F.G.S., F.R.G.S. 4to ; 



pp. 102, plates i-xvi from photographs, 2 maps, 6 sections, and 



10 figures in the text. (Cairo : National Printing Department, 



1905.) 



rpHE Province of the Fayum is deeply interesting alike to the 



JL archgeologist and the geologist. It occupies a large circular 



depression in the Lybiau Desert, situated some 50 miles south-west 



of Cairo, and immediately west of that part of the Nile Valley lying 



between Kafr el Aj^at and Feshn. The depression, which, roughly 



speaking, has an area of about 12,000 square kilometres, comprises 



within it three distinct parts — (1) cultivated land, (2) lake, and 



(3) desert. 



(1) The cultivated land has an area of about 1,800 square 

 kilometres, and, with the exception of the lake and part of the Wadi 

 Eayan, it occupies the lowest part of the depression. This region 

 is everywhere covered with alluvial soil, identical for the most 

 part with the river alluvium of the Nile Valley, and is bounded 

 by the desert on the south and east sides, and by the lake, Birket 

 el Qurun, on the north-west. It forms a more or less level plain, 

 from which the ground slopes gently away, on the north side 

 towards the lake. The Fayum is directly connected with the 

 Nile Valley by a narrow strip of low ground, a natural passage 

 through the desert separating the Nile Valley and the Fayum 

 depression. Through this gap runs the natural canal known as 

 the Bahr Yusef, which is the sole source of water in the Fayum, 

 irrigating the entire district. Once within the Fayum the Bahr 

 Yusef gives off numerous subsidiary canals which traverse the 

 country in all directions, constantly' splitting up into smaller 

 branches until the water supply is divided throughout the whole 

 area, finally draining into the Birket el Qurun lake, the surface of 

 which is now 4i metres below the level of the Mediterranean. There 

 are two deep dry depressions to the south-west known as the Wadi 

 Rayau and the Wadi Muela ; these have been examined by 

 Mr. Beadnell with the idea of possibly utilising them in connection 

 with a Nile reservoir. 



(2) The pret-ent lake, which is from SO to 90 square miles in 

 extent, represents tlie existing remnant of the once celebrated Lake 

 Moeris, which, in the reign of Amenemhat I and his successors 

 of the Twelfth Dynasty, covered a large part of the floor of the 

 Fayum depression, and was converted by them into an artificially 

 controlled sheet of water and used as a regulator of excessively high 

 and low Nile floods in connection with the irrigation of the Nile 

 Valley. The lake is now greatly reduced in size ; in prehistoric 

 times it must have been of immense extent — Mr. Beadnell thinks 

 probably ten times the size of the modern Birket el Qurun — for 

 lacustrine deposits showing approximately the actual limits of 

 the ancient Fayum lake can be traced over wide areas of now 

 barren desert. 



