_Description of the Wadi Raiân._—“This valley or depression in the Libyan Desert, discovered by Mr. Cope Whitehouse in 1886 (really three or four years earlier), lies immediately to the south-west of the Fayoum Province, but separated from it by a range of low hills, 2 kilometres in width and with heights of about 40 metres above sea-level. Two passes, however, leading from the Gharak basin, with level of + 26 metres, have been found in this dividing range and, except for these two passes or entrances, the Wadi is everywhere bounded by hills of at least + 36 metres. “The soil of the Wadi is for the most part composed of desert sand and pebbles overlying in places a yellow clay, but this desert sand is for about one-sixth of the area hidden by drifting sand-hills or ridges rising some 5 to 10 metres above the general plain. “Towards the south of the Wadi there are two fresh-water springs; and near these a few date-trees and some brushwood grow. “The deepest level of the Wadi Raian reaches 40 metres below sea-level. “To the east of the Wadi, and connected at a level of + 55, is the Wadi Muellah, a valley about 1½ kilometres wide and 7 long. Its lowest depression is at + 25. “In the Wadi Muellah there are ruins of ancient buildings, and a fair amount of coarse vegetation near them. “Another small depression, also connected with the Wadi Raian, has been found lying to the south of the Gharak basin of the Fayoum, and only separated by a ridge at level + 35, and 1 kilometre in width. This depression is some 10 kilometres in length by 4 mean width, and has a bottom at about + 15 metres.” Now, there is no evidence whatever that the Wadi Raiân had ever any possible communication with the Nile except by way of the Fayûm depression through the two gaps in the encircling walls of the Wadi, the sills of which are stated by Colonel Western to be at R.L. 26·00, but which later surveys, not yet published, show to be one at R.L. 26·00, and the other at R.L. 27·00. The Wadi Muellah, on first inspection of the map, appears to offer the most likely line of communication with the Nile Valley, but an examination of this Wadi at its upper end towards the Nile Valley gives no evidence of any such communication having ever existed. What seems a conclusive proof that the Wadi Raiân was never in _direct_ communication with the Nile Valley, is the total absence of all trace of Nile deposit within the limits of the depression.