[Illustration: 449.jpg THE KIOSK AT PHILÆ IN PROCESS OF UNDERPINNING AND RESTORATION, JANUARY, 1902.] Steel girders have been fixed across the island from quay to quay, and these have been surrounded by cement masonry, made water-tight by forcing in cement grout. Pharaoh’s Bed and the colonnade have been firmly underpinned in cement masonry, and there is little doubt that the actual stability of Philæ is now more certain than that of any other temple in Egypt. The only possible damage that can accrue to it is the partial discolouration of the lower courses of the stonework of Pharaoh’s Bed, etc., which already bear a distinct high-water mark. Some surface disintegration from the formation of salt crystals is perhaps inevitable here, but the effects of this can always be neutralized by careful washing, which it should be an important charge of the Antiquities Department to regularly carry out.” [Illustration: 450.jpg THE ANCIENT QUAY OP PHILÆ, NOVEMBER, 1904.] This is entirely covered when the reservoir is full, and the palm-trees are farther submerged. The photographs accompanying the present chapter show the dam, the Kiosk in process of conservation and underpinning (1902), and the shores of the island as they now appear in the month of November, with the water nearly up to the level of the quays. A view is also given of the island of Konosso, with its inscriptions, as it is now. The island is simply a huge granite boulder of the kind characteristic of the neighbourhood of Shellâl (Phila?) and Aswân. On the island of Elephantine, opposite Aswân, an interesting discovery has lately been made by Mr. Howard Carter. This is a remarkable well, which was supposed by the ancients to lie immediately on the tropic. It formed the basis of Eratosthenes’ calculations of the measurement of the earth. Important finds of documents written in Aramaic have also been made here; they show that there was on the island in Ptolemaic times a regular colony of Syrian merchants.