LAKE MOERIS A MYTH have been content to accept the identification of the site of the Lake Moeris, described b}- Herodotus, made by M. Linant de Bellefonds/ who thought that the road -ways which exist between the towns of Al-Lahun and Madinat al-Fayyiim were the remains of the dams within which Amenemhat III. confined the waters of his lake. M. Linant maintained that Lake Moeris occupied the gap in the hills by which the Bahr Yusuf enters the Fayyum, and covered the so-called " plateau " on the south-east of Madina, the encircling bank commencing at its north-east end at Edvvah, and being continued through Al-A'alam, Bihamu, Zawiyat al-Karadsa to Madina. The area given to the supposed lake by Linant is 405,479,000 square metres, but the true area is 257,800,000 square metres ; the Lake described by Herodotus had a circuit of 450 miles, but the perimeter of Linant's Lake is no kilometres. The depth given to the Lake by Herodotus is 92 metres, whilst that of Linant is 9'6o metres. The first to point out these facts, and to show that Linant's identification, which has been accepted by almost every writer, is incorrect was Major R. H. Brown, R.E.,- who sums up the matter thus :—" The Linant theory, examined in the light of the " more accurate knowledge gained by the physical features of "the Fayiim, and tested by the application of figures to determine " its possible performances, can no longer stand, but falls to pieces ; " and the wonder is that, based as it was upon erroneous data and " propped up by no solid supoort of fact, it stood so long. It may " be said of it, to the credit of its author, that it was ingenious, but " not that it was true." Major Brown's facts are accepted by Prof.

Maspero, who, in speaking of the accounts of the Labyrinth and Lake Moeris given by classical writers, says, " These are only " legends, in which the truth only holds a very small place. The '* famous reservoir, which regulated the inundation, and assured "the fertility of Egypt, never existed. What Herodotus saw "was the inundation, and that which he took for the dams "which formed the enclosure of the reservoir, are the road-ways " which separated the basins one from the other. When he visited ' See Mvmoires sur les Principaux Travaux (Tutilite publiqiie executes en tgypte depiiis la plus haute antiquitv jusqu'a nos jours 1 872-1873, chapter ii.

- See the Fayiiin and Lake Moeris, London, 1892.