The silver state. [volume] (Unionville, Nev.) 1870-1903, 1886-11-05
LAKE MoERIs.
A Reservoir Supposed to Have Been
Built by Joseph Discovered.

Built by Joseph Discovered.
The European press published the
statement three or four weeks ago that
the Egyption Minister Of Public Works
had decided to utilize the recent discov.
cry of the bed of the ancient Lake Mo-
ers. He wishes TO rebuild the old canal
that nearly four thousand years ago was
dug between the basin and the Nile, and
make this great depression about sixty
miles southwest OF Cairo once more the
reservoir for the surplus waters OF the
Nile at food. He has, therefore, ac-
cepted the offer made through G. White
house to restore Lake Moeris by private
enterprise to it's ancient function OF re-
ceiving and dispensing the waters Of the
Nlle
This is proposal to repeat in modern
times great engineering enterprise
which the patriarch Joseph is said by
some authorities to bave carried out. 1t
is all the more noteworthy because the
fact that Lake Moeris ever existed has
been denied for centuries. Linaut some
forty years ago revived the notion that
Herodotus told the truth after all, but
not until 1882 did the best geographical
authorities agree that there was once
Lake Moeris, and that its ancient bed
had been found.
OF the wonders that Herodotus de.
scribed as existing near Memphis, two.
the Labyrinth and Lake Moeris, have
been unknown to modern research. He
and other ancient writers agreed in de-
scribing Lake Moeris as reservoir of
the Nile, 45O miles in circumference, 300
feet deep, and full Of fish OF twenty two
species. There were dykes at the mouths
Of the canal by which the engineers
stored up or distributed its water supply.
The lake was mostly bordered by the
desert. On its banks lived multitudes OF
fishermen, who caught and salted the fish
that bred freely in the lake, which owed
its existence to one or more artificial
channels connecting it with the Nile.
Herodotus. Strabo. Diodorus. Piiny,
aud other Greek and Latin writers, have
been freely charged with falsehood or ex-
aggeratiou in what they wrote about
Lake Moeris. C. Ptolemy placed the
horn-shaped lake on his map at the very
place where exists great depression OF
similar shape to which it is now assigned.
Some copies of his map, however, did not
contain the lake, and editors Of Ptolemy
in the fifteenth century expunged it from
his map, and it is only recently that it
has reappeared on all the best maps.
Chiefly through the researches Of Linaut,
Whitehouse, and, last of all, Stadler,
whose observations, completed in Febru.
ary, established the correctness OF pre-.
vious explorations, the world has at last
been convinced that on the southern
edge OF the Fayoum exists a great de-
preston, which is 300 feet below the
level OF the river, and is separated by a
chain of hills from the Nile, with which
it was once connected by the Bahr Josuf,
or land of Joseph. and perhaps also by
aaother artificial channel.
1t is asserted by Mr.. Whitehouse and
the engineers in Egypt's service who ac-
companied him in his last journey in
1883 that the work Of restoring the lake
will prove comparatively easy. They
estimate that during the time of the
Niles flood the basin can receive at least
sixty million cubic meters Of water a
day; and that this volume shut up in
safe reservoir will avert all danger OF the
excessive inundations that afflict the fer
tile delta. From this reservoir also,
when the Nile is low, water can be sent
back to the river for the purposes of nav
igation or irrigation. They also assert
that vast amount OF land now perpetu-
ally under water can, by means OF this
reservoir, be restored to agriculture; that
the big lakes around Alexandria will
thus be drained and the Mediterranean
shores Of Egypt will again resemble the
mouths of the Rhine and the coast Of