In some instances, the excavations made under the superintendence of Hekekyan Bey were on a large scale for the first 16 or 24 feet, in which cases jars, vases, pots and a small human figure in burnt clay, a copper knife, and other entire articles were dug up; but when water soaking through from the Nile was reached the boring instrument used was too small to allow of more than fragments of works of art being brought up. Pieces of burnt brick and pottery were extracted almost everywhere, and from all depths, even where they sank 60 feet below the surface towards the central parts of the valley. In none of these cases did they get to the bottom of the alluvial soil. It has been objected, among other criticisms, that the Arabs can always find whatever their employers desire to obtain. Even those who are too well acquainted with the sagacity and energy of Hekekyan Bey to suspect him of having been deceived, have suggested that the artificial objects might have fallen into old wells which had been filled up. This notion is inadmissible for many reasons. Of the ninety-five shafts and borings, seventy or more were made far from the sites of towns or villages; and allowing that every field may once have had its well, there would be but small chance of the borings striking upon the site even of a small number of them in seventy experiments. Others have suggested that the Nile may have wandered over the whole valley, undermining its banks on one side and filling up old channels on the other. It has also been asked whether the delta with the numerous shifting arms of the river may not once have been at every point where the auger pierced.* (* For a detailed account of these sections, see Mr. Horner's paper in the "Philosophical Transactions" for 1855 to 1858.) To all these objections there are two obvious answers:--First, in historical times the Nile has on the whole been very stationary, and has not shifted its position in the valley; secondly, if the mud pierced through had been thrown down by the river in ancient channels, it would have been stratified, and would not have corresponded so closely with inundation mud, we learn from Captain Newbold that he observed in some excavations in the great plain alternations of sand and clay, such as are seen in the modern banks of the Nile; but in the borings made by Hekekyan Bey, such stratification seems scarcely in any case to have been detected.