EGYPTIAN RESEARCHES. 323 



accumulation would only be the complement of the excep- 

 tional want of deposit which had preceded it; and, conse- 

 quently, when the level of the surrounding plain had been 

 attained, then although the mud covering the base of the 

 statue may have been altogether deposited in the last few 

 hundred years, i.e. since the embankments have been neg- 

 lected, the thickness of the deposit will still be a measure of 

 the general elevation which has taken place on the sur- 

 rounding plain since the erection of the monument. 



Even if the embankments had remained intact to this 

 day, and the monument stood now in the hollow thus pro- 

 duced, Mr. Earner's argument would not be invalidated, but 

 rather confirmed. The depth of the hollow would give us a 

 measure of the deposit which had taken place since the 

 erection of the monument, or rather since the formation of 

 the embankment. If, however, the monument had been 

 erected in an area already depressed by the action of still 

 older embankments, the calculation would be vitiated, but in 

 this case the rate of deposition would appear to be greater 

 than it really is, and. the age consequently would be under- 

 rated. There are other causes, however, which prevent me 

 from accepting unreservedly the conclusions of Mr. Eorner, 

 although his experiments are of great importance, and much 

 credit is due to the Egyptian government for the liberal 

 manner in which they assisted Mr. Eorner and the Royal 

 Society in this investigation. 



We have already mentioned the evidence on which M. 

 Morlot has endeavoured to estimate the age of the Cone de 

 la Tiniere and which gave about six thousand years for the 

 lower layer of vegetable soil, and ten thousand years for 

 the whole of the existing cone. But above this existing 

 cone is another, which was formed when the lake stood at a 

 higher level than at present, and which M. Morlot refers to 

 the period of the river-drift gravels. This drift-age cone, 



