The dam has worked for two years and given satisfaction. When the Nile was at its lowest in May 1903, the natural discharge of the river, supplemented by all the subsoil infiltration water which enters the river between Assouân and the sea, was 400 cubic metres per second. The reservoir was adding 200 cubic metres per second to the supply, raising the total supply available for irrigation to 600 cubic metres per second. The reservoir was supplying one-third of the water which was being utilized in Egypt. This water will suffice for an increase to the perennially irrigated area of ¹⁄₂ million acres. At the time of designing the dam it was intended that it should be of such a section that it could be raised 6 metres in height and hold up another milliard of cubic metres of water. Such an operation, if performed to-day, would mean: the whole length of dam being raised 6 metres, the winches working the sluice gates being raised 6 metres and provided with new wire ropes; and new copings being given to the parapets. It would necessitate two more locks and three more lock gates, and nothing else. The expenditure incurred would be about £500,000. 33. =The Wady Rayan Reservoir Project.=--When the Assouân dam will have been raised, we shall be standing on the threshold of what it will be able to do. The projected Wady Rayan reservoir, or the modern Lake Mœris, will be well able to supply the two remaining milliards of cubic metres of water when working in conjunction with the Assuân Reservoir. The great weakness of this projected lake has lain in the fact that _by itself_ it could give a plentiful discharge in April and May, less in June, and very little in July, and it was for this reason that in my report of 1894 to the Egyptian Government I had reluctantly to recommend that it be not carried out. But when the Assouân reservoir is capable of supplying two milliards of cubic metres of water it will be possible to utilise the Mœris Lake to its utmost capacity. The Assouan Reservoir, being high above the level of the Nile can give its supply at the beginning or end of the summer; it can give it slowly or with a rush; while the projected Lake Mœris, being directly in communication with the Nile, and only slightly above low Nile level, its discharge would depend entirely on the difference of level between it and the Nile, and consequently as the summer advanced its level would gradually fall and the lake would not be able to give at the end of the summer a quarter of the discharge it could give at the beginning. [Illustration: PLATE XV PROPOSED WADI RAYAN RESERVOIR SHOWING THE FAYOUM _All R. L.^{s} in metres, above or below mean sea._ + - _Desert._ _Scale 1 : 500,000_ Lith. Sur. Dep. Cairo.]