Lake Mœris formed an elbow to the west, was oblong, and situate in the middle of the lands along the mountains above Memphis. These statements are not in the original language in which they were made, and may be inaccurately translated, where accurate rendering is important. I have found for instance in different publications the two following translations of the same passage in Diodorus:— (_a_) “A little south of Memphis a canal was cut for a lake, brought down in length from the city 40 miles.” (_b_) “And a little above the city he cut a dyke for a pond, bringing it down in length from the city 320 furlongs.” (Translation by G. Booth.) A canal and dyke are not synonymous terms, in all parts of England at any rate; nor are lake and pond. Some of the statements are founded also on hearsay when they were first made, and the ancestors of the present inhabitants of the Fayûm may, for all that is known, have had as great a tendency to the widest possible departure from scientific accuracy of statement in their verbal representation of facts, as it is notorious that their modern successors have. Hence it is not surprising that human nature, which has a parental prejudice in favour of any theory to which it may have given birth, should take advantage of these weak points to the benefit of its offspring. We will then proceed to discuss the present generation of theories, which exemplify this principle. LINANT THEORY. The most important of these theories is that of Linant de Bellefonds Pasha, once Minister of Public Works in Egypt. His views will be found in Chapter II. of his ‘Mémoires sur les Principaux Travaux d’utilité publique exécutés en Egypte depuis la plus haute antiquité jusqu’à nos jours, 1872-1873.’ His theory, which defines the form and limits of Lake Mœris, appears to have been generally accepted after being propounded, and still to be the accepted theory with many, who have not, by a personal acquaintance with the Fayûm and its actual conformation and levels, corrected the ideas which they had accepted on the authority of Linant Pasha. (For the names of places quoted from M. Linant’s writings I have adopted the more modern way of spelling, as otherwise the places might not be recognised. For instance, had it not been for the context, I should not have been able to recognise the village known as Abûksah in “Bogça.”) _Linant’s Theory stated._—M. Linant maintains that Lake Mœris occupied the gap in the hills by which the Bahr Yûsuf enters the Fayûm, and covered the so-called “plateau” on the south-east of Medineh, the encircling bank commencing at its north-east end at Edwah, and being continued through el-Alam, Biahmu, Zowyet-el-Karatsah, to Medineh. See Plate VII. The remains of this bank he traced throughout this length, and saw evidences of it again to the S.S.E. of Medineh.