well-marked peak, it forms a very conspicuous landmark; my trigonometric determination gave 1726 metres for the altitude of the peak above sea. To the south-west of Kissu there are a few widely scattered isolated hills, but the country in general forms a rolling plain of sand extending to the north-east corner of French Equatorial Africa with a nearly uniform level of about 700 metres. Beyond the French boundary the ground rises towards the Erdi Hills, which attain over 1000 metres. From the corner of French Equatorial Africa to Merga, a distance of 250 kilometres, the country consists of alternations of sand-plains and flat stony tracts, with a very gradual fall to a level of about 560 metres at the edge of the Merga depression. Between Merga and Owenat the country consists of sandy plains alternating with broken stony ground and occasional hills. The general level rises from about 570 metres on the northern side of the Merga depression to nearly 800 metres on the parallel of 20° 30′, then gradually falls to about 600 metres at the foot of Gebel Owenat. 1. _Did the Nile, or a Branch of it, ever flow through the Libyan Desert to the Mediterranean?_ The idea that a “dry river” exists in the Libyan Desert is a very old one, and seems to have had its origin in the fact that barren depressions in that region are sometimes called by the local Arabs _Bahr bela ma_, that is, “sea without water.” But the Arabic word _bahr_, which properly means a sea or a lake, as in Bahr Lot (the Dead Sea), is also applied in Egypt and the Sudan to a river, as in Bahr el Nil (the Nile) and Bahr el Azrak (the Blue Nile).[5]