$78 Mr Maclaren's Account of the Ancient Canal 
flows down from the high lands on the west, supports a consi- 
derable growth of shrubs and herbage. The soil is chiefly com- 
posed of sand and earth, washed down by the torrents, and the 
surface, both in the canal and elsewhere, has in many cases re- 
sumed a certain degree of consolidation, from calcareous infiltra- 
tions. Pits dug in the canal, to the depth of 4 or 5 feet, dis- 
covered layers of gypsum, earthy clay, and a moist saline sand. 
The vestiges of the canal disappear entirely, at the point where 
it enters the basin of the Bitter Lakes, and where the surface is 
15 feet 3 inches (French) below the high-water level at Suez. 
The second section consists of the basin of the Bitter Lakes, 
$7 miles long, and from 5 to 7 miles broad, running in a north- 
west direction. No cutting or embanking would be. required 
here, the bottom of the basin being from $0 to 54 feet (French) 
below high water at Suez ; and at this depth the water would 
actually stand in these lakes were a communication opened 
with the Gulf. Hence their bottom is in some parts $4 feet be- 
low r the Mediterranean (see the section). There is no doubt that 
these lakes are the Lacus Amari of Pliny. The basin contains 
no water except in some pools in the lowest parts. The surface is 
covered by saline incrustations, under which are natural vaults 
or cavities, that sound beneath the feet. The soil below consists 
of earth and sand, or mud ; and generally at the depth of 4 or 
5 yards water is found, but loaded with saline matter, and ex- 
cessively bitter. At the northern extremity of these lakes some 
ruins are found, which are supposed to belong to a temple of 
Serapis, and are hence called the Serapeum. 
The boundary of this basin is accurately marked on the de- 
clivities by lines of gravel, shells, and marine debris, of the same 
kind, and precisely at the same level, with those found at the 
high-water mark on the beach of the, Red Sea. Hence, M. 
Bois Ayme has maintained, in a memoir, that the Bitter Lakes 
were, at no very remote period, an integrant part of the Arabic 
Gulf. The low bank which now divides the lakes from that sea, 
may have been originally thrown up, he thinks, by a tempest, and 
afterwards raised by drift-sands and soil washed down from the 
heights. If the facts be correctly stated, there can be no doubt 
that the Bitter Lakes have at one time formed part of the Gulf ; 
but, in this case, the Gulf must have formed one sea with the 
