Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/94

 Bahr-belâ-mâ, or "Waterless Sea." But this hypothesis has not been confirmed by the latest surveys, which have failed to discover any alluvial deposits indicating the presence of the stream at this point. The planks and masts of Nile boats spoken of by the Arabs are the stems of petrified trees, such as occur in various parts of the desert.

The Fayum, the Arsinoïtidis of the ancients, has been the scene of some of the most remarkable hydraulic operations of the old Egyptian engineers. Before the

interference of man the whole depression, which received all the waters of the Bahr-Yusef, formed an extensive inland sea. On this point tradition is unanimous, and in any case the continuous inflow must have flooded the cavity to a level sufficiently high to establish an equilibrium between the discharge and the loss by evaporation. The very name of Fayum (Piom, Phaïom), is said to mean "flooded land" in the old Egyptian language, although the Arabic word fayyum itself gives the appropriate sense of "corn-bearer." But after the Bahr-Yusef