[Illustration: PLATE XXIV. MODIFIED REPRESENTATION OF THE BIAHMU RUINS RESTORED.] I have consulted Smith’s ‘Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography,’ to find out what the editor considered to be the accepted views about Lake Mœris in 1868. Under “Mœris Lacus” I find that the views stated agree in the main with those favoured in this paper. Linant’s theory is not referred to, and probably had not been heard of by the editor. The following passage about the connecting canal occurs in the Dictionary, which can hardly be made to refer to the Bahr Yûsuf as the main lake-feeder, though assumed to do so in the passage itself:—“There are grounds for supposing that ancient travellers did not always distinguish between the connecting canal, the Bahr Yûsuf, and Mœris itself. The canal was unquestionably constructed by man’s labour, nor would it present any insuperable difficulties to a people so laborious as the Egyptians. If, then, we distinguished, as Strabo did, the canal from the lake, the ancient narratives may be easily reconciled with one another and with modern surveys. Even the words of Herodotus may apply to the canal, which was of considerable extent, beginning at Hermopolis (Ashmunîn) and running four leagues west, and then turning from north to south for three leagues more, until it reaches the lake.” Now the old Magnûnah Canal, with its mouth on the river near Ashment, goes west for a little over three leagues to Abûsir-el-Malaq, and then turns _from north to south_ for three leagues till it reaches Lahûn. (Plate XXI.) As it is a remarkable thing to find a canal in the Nile Valley which runs from north to south, the near agreement of these figures and directions is a remarkable coincidence, if it is nothing more. There is another coincidence which may well be accidental, but is worth noticing. Arab tradition is, I believe, the authority for placing the mouth of the connecting canal at Ashmunîn. “Joseph collected workmen and dug the canal of Menhi from Ashmunîn to el-Lahûn.” Now the mouth of the old Magnûnah Canal, which I have been supposing may have been the canal of inflow, had one of its mouths near “Ashment.” Can a misprint have been responsible for “Ashment” being changed into “Ashmunîn,” or may it not have been changed during the process of handing down the tradition orally, the name of the larger town Ashmunîn being substituted when the lesser Ashment lost its importance and its notoriety after Lake Mœris ceased to be? But all these speculations must be modified, _but not more than modified_, if what follows is a more correct view of the conditions of the Nile at the time of Herodotus. Hitherto I have assumed that the levels of maximum and minimum Nile were the same in his time as they are now.