Discharges are given as so many cubic metres per day of 24 hours. 1,000,000 cubic metres a day = 11·5741 cubic metres per second. = 408·9775 cubic feet per second. Areas are given in feddans, which is the Egyptian acre. 1 feddan = 4200·8333 square metres. = 1·038 acre. R.L. signifies “reduced level,” or the level referred to mean sea-level:—e.g. “at R.L. 25·00” means that the spot, to which the figure relates, is 25 metres above mean sea-level; and “R.L. - 40·00” means 40 metres below mean sea-level. A contour is the line running through all the points which are at the same level above or below mean sea-level. An Egyptian pound, L.E., = 1¹⁄₃₉ English pound, £. CHAPTER I. THE FAYÛM OF TO-DAY. _Position of the Fayûm with reference to the Nile Valley._—About 50 miles south of Cairo, a branch line leaves the Upper Egypt line of railway and goes west. After crossing the Basin land of the Nile Valley, it enters the western desert, and after a short ascent and somewhat longer descent, it reaches the station of Edwah in the Province of The Fayûm. This province is the most remarkable and interesting of all the provinces of Egypt. It is an oasis surrounded by desert, being separated from the Nile Valley by four to twelve kilometres width of the Libyan Desert, and being connected with it by a narrow neck of cultivation marking the gap in the Libyan Hills, by which the Bahr Yûsuf enters the Fayûm. _Depressions connected with the Fayûm._—Forming part of this province, and included in it administratively, is the Gharaq Basin or depression, which is partly cultivated, but surrounded by desert lands above the present limits of irrigation, and in communication with the Fayûm by a narrow neck at R.L. 16·00 (16 metres above mean sea-level). Adjacent to the Gharaq Basin is another more considerable depression with an area of about one-quarter that of the Fayûm (at contour R.L. 25·00). This depression, known as the Wadi Raiân, had attention drawn to it by Mr. Cope Whitehouse, who proposed its utilisation as a reservoir for controlling the Nile floods, and supplementing the low summer Nile. This Wadi is now bare desert. Its lowest point is 40 metres below sea-level, and the depression thus corresponds, as a geological formation, with the Fayûm depression, the lowest point of which (the bed of Lake Qurûn), is known to be not less than 48, and is perhaps as much as 60 metres below mean sea-level, but soundings are required to establish the actuality of the greater depth. The Wadi Raiân is surrounded by hills, on all sides rising above the level of + 36, except at two gaps in the hills separating it from the Gharaq Basin, which have their sills at R.L. 27·00 and 26·00 respectively.