In 1894 the plans and designs in connection with the Wadi Rayan were published[21] and the possibility of utilizing the Wadi Rayan was examined by Sir William Willcocks, then Director General of Reservoirs, from an engineering point of view, and the questions of its probable cost and future utility were discussed. In this report it is stated that the routes proposed by Colonel Western in 1888 pass through salty marls and clays unsuitable for holding canals. Another route is suggested, which after leaving the Nile Valley crosses the high desert ridge in a straight line, passing through the so-called Wadi Liernur (Wadi Lulu of Cope Whitehouse); this depression is 12 kilometres long and has its bed some 24 metres below the general level of the desert. Plate 15 of the report shows the Wadi Rayan, the deserts between it and the Nile Valley and the cultivated land. The map was begun by Col. Western and completed by Willcocks. The lowest point of Wadi Rayan is shown as − 42 metres and the depression is separated from the Fayûm by a limestone ridge generally from + 34 to + 60 metres, except at two places where it falls to + 26 metres above sea level on a length of 600 metres. Within the + 27 metre contour line the wadi has an area of 673 square kilometres and a capacity of 18,743,000,000 cubic metres. Between it and the Nile Valley lie 30 kilometres of desert, of which 11 are occupied by a marked depression discovered by Liernur Bey in 1887. At the extreme western edge of the Nile Valley (here 20 kilometres wide) runs the Bahr Yusef. Comparing the proposed Wadi Rayan reservoir and the ancient Mœris and allowing for a difference of 4·5 metres between the levels of the Nile Valley in B.C. 2,000 and to-day, Willcocks assumes that the high water mark of Lake Mœris was at + 22·5 metres and its area 2,500 square kilometres, against 673 square kilometres of the Wadi Rayan at + 27 metres. It is pointed out that the ancient lake had the great advantage that in those days the Bahr Yusef was an important branch of the Nile, if not the main river itself, and the reservoir was connected with the Nile by a natural ravine of great length and short breadth, across which a massive embankment was thrown and destroyed annually, the surplus water of high floods being stored for the deficiency of low floods.