Although the Nile in December and January carries an insignificant amount of sediment compared to that brought down in August and September, it yet brings down a very considerable quantity, far greater than most other rivers at any time, and quite enough to go a long way towards silting up the bed of the Reservoir, if it was allowed to remain. But for this the river provides its own remedy: every year the force of the flood will act like a gigantic broom, sweeping the floor of the Reservoir. The sluices, arranged in sets of five, are distributed at different levels, according to the formation of the river-bed on the upstream side, so as to facilitate this process to the utmost. During the months of the inundation the Nile at Assouan pours down for weeks together a volume of 10,000 tons of water per second, and sometimes as much as 14,000 or 15,000 tons per second. The rush of this stupendous mass is sufficient to assure us that there will be no silting up of the Reservoir. Two of the difficulties had been thus overcome, when, from a new and unexpected quarter, a storm sprang up, which very nearly brought to a standstill the rising fabric of Egyptian prosperity. The project of the Reservoir would have raised the level of the water, and held up the river above the Dam to a head of 100 feet; this would have involved the temporary submersion every year of the island of Philæ, with its famous Temple of Isis, Pharaoh’s Bed, and other monuments. A terrific hubbub arose. Archæological and antiquarian societies, which until then had sometimes belittled the monuments of Philæ as belonging to an inferior period, poured in their protests. People who had never heard of Philæ before, but who were none the less influential for that, joined in the outcry. Diplomatists, whose one desire was to embarrass our progress in Egypt, took up the cause of Art with a will. These champions of humanity at large forgot the poor fellaheen, to whom the extra water means all the difference between misery and happiness; nothing would satisfy them but the complete abandonment of the project. The engineers fought stoutly in the interests of Egypt; they offered to raise the whole of the monuments bodily, or to transport them to the neighbouring island of Bigeh; but, though they saved the Dam, the original design was lost, and the Dam to-day is 33 feet lower than it ought to have been. The foundations of Philæ have been underpinned and strengthened, the island will only be partially submerged, and the injury to Egypt can only be faintly estimated.