Geographical Collections. 133. 
A careful examination of the labours of Mr. R. dissipated, however, a great 
many of the brilliant hopes which had been founded on these researches. 
Part of the drawings represent Grecian inscriptions, copied near the second ca- 
taract, at Syene, &c.; but as the same spots have been visited either previous 
to, or after Mr. Rifaud, out of 114 Greek inscriptions, only 26 were found to be 
unpublished. 
The Arabian inscriptions consist of 100 narrow bands of paper found in the 
tombs of Musselmen. ‘They do not date farther back then the 13th century, and 
for the most part contain magic formule, and religious sentences or passages of 
the Koran. : 
The hieroglyphic subjects speak highly of Mr Rifaud’s activity. There are 
147 of them, and 53 sheets representing monuments of Nubia and of Egypt, and 
30 drawings of architectural details; but these drawings require much correction 
before they can be published. 
Mr. Rifaud has collected also 200 ancient medals in gold, silver, pewter, and 
brass, which he intends giving to different cabinets. 
He has also constructed several maps and plans relative to the ancient topo- 
graphy of the country, at Medinet-el-Fars, the capital of Fayoum. He is said 
to have dug to a depth of more than 200 feet, and to have proved that this an- 
cient town has been built on three successive soils, and that a considerable 
space of time elapsed between these different re-constructions ; for the superior 
buildings have an entirely different form to the inferior ones. Our traveller 
found in the latter, mosaics, of which he made 213 drawings, besides bringing 
home some specimens whose high antiquity is very dubious. Some bricks, with 
singular characters marked on them, were also found by him in the greatest py- 
ramid of Fayoum. 
While occupied with researches for statues and monolithes in Thebes, he dis- 
covered some ancient monuments, little temples with coloured columns, peri- 
styles, palaces, &c. on the eastern side, which were hidden under the ruins at the 
time of the French expedition. 
Though Mr. Rifaud, during his long residence in the east, learnt to converse 
in the Arabian language, he did not study it by its principles. In consequence 
of which, when he has wished to take notes of the denominations of the plants 
and animals in use in the country, they are oftentimes quite incomprehensible. 
During nearly four years he kept a regular meteorological register, consisting 
of observations made both by night and by day,.as well upon temperature as 
upon different atmospheric phenomena. It is to be regretted that this observer 
has not had at his disposition a barometer to follow the comparative march of 
atmospheric variations. 
The attention which Mr. Rifaud paid to natural history, is the more deserving 
of praise, as it shows a resolution seldom possessed by men devoted to other 
branches of knowledge, notwithstanding the advantage they could confer to that 
science and to society, of which Mr. Rifaud has given us a proof. 
Constantly occupied with his subject, it is by thousands that he has collected 
drawings, quadrupeds, birds, fishes, insects, and vegetables. Every thing is to 
be found in his portfolio; even sketches of all the classes of vertebral animals 
are Seen in great quantities ; and though zoological characters have not been an 
object of the particular attention of the author, it is not impossible for experien- 
ced naturalists to trace them in his figures. 
Mr. Rifaud has indeed brought home a sufficiently great number of the ori- 
ginal pieces from which his copies were made; and they can be used to rectify 
or complete what may have escaped in his drawings. 
Unfortunately every thing is not equally well preserved in his collections. The 
burning climate of Egypt accelerates too much the destruction of dry animal 
parts, to allow them to be long preserved ; and the obligation under which he was 
placed, of opening his boxes at the lazaretto of Livournia, and of exposing their 
contents to rain and to the sun, has much added to the losses which the climate 
of Egypt had occasioned to him. Nevertheless-he still possesses some very pre- 
cious skeletons, particularly of the fish of the Nile. 
