Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-07-22
LAKE MOERIS.
Its Existence Proved After Centuries of
Doubt,

The European press published the
statement three or four weeks ago thai
the Egyptian minister of public works
had decided to utilize the recent dis.
coyery of the bed of the ancient Lake
Moeris. 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 depres-
sion about sixty miles southwest OF
surplus of the Nile at flood. He has.
therefore, declined the offer made
through Mr.. C. Whitehousc to restore
Lake Moeris by private enterprise to its
ancient function of receiving and dis.
pensng the waters of the Nile
This is proposal to repeat in mod
ern times a great engineering enter
prise which the patriarch Joseph is
said by some authorities to have car
ried out 1t is all the moro 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 Il 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 writer's agreed in de-
scribing Lake Moeris as Il reservoir OF
the Nile. $50 miles in circumference,
800 feet cep. and full of fish of twenty
two species. There were bikes at the
mouths of The canal by which the engi-
neers stored up or distributed its water
supply. The lake was mostly bordered
by the dcser. On its banks lived null
titudes of fishermen, who caught and
sailed the fish that bred freely in the
lake, which owed It's existence to one or
more artificial channels connecting it
with the Nile.
Herodotus. Strabo. Diodorus, Pliny,
and other Greek and Latin writer's have
been freely charged with falsehood or
exaggeration in what they wrote about
Lake Moeris c. Ptolemy placed the
horn-shaped lake on his map at the
very place where exists great depres-
sion of similar shape to which it is now
assigned. Some copies of his map, how
ever. did not contain the lake, aud edi-
tors of Ptolemy in the fifteenth century
expunged 1T 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, Stadicf. whose observations,
completed in February. established the
correctness of previous explorations, the
world has at last been convinced that
on the southern edge Of the Fayoum ex-
lists 4 great depression, which is three
hundred feet below the level of the
river, and is separated by chain of
hills from the Nile, with which it was
once connected by the Bahr Josuf, or
land of Joseph, and perhaps also by an
other artificial channel
1t is asserted by Mr.. Whitehouse and
the engineers in Egvpt's service who
accompanied him in his last journey in
1888 that the work OF restoring the lake
viii prove comparatively easy. They
estimate that during the time of the
Niles flood the basin can receive at
least sixty million cnbic meters of water
Il udy, anu lfldt TINS volume, smut I'D IN
a safe reservoir, viii avert all danger of
the excessive foundations that affiict the
fertile delta, From this reservoir also,
when the Nile is low, water can be sent
back to the river for purpose of naviga-
ton or irrigation. They also assert that
a vast amount of land now perpetually
under water can, by means of this res
ervoir, 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
Holland.
The little son of I. O'Brien of Patcho-
que, l.. l., evinces most extraordinary
desire to devour his own flesh. The boy
is bright youngster, 6 years of age,
and his mind. save for his auto-canni-
balistic tendency, is well balanced. The
boy, when left alone, tries TO bite pieces
out of his arms and hands. He seizes
his flesh between his teeth, but he seems
70 feel no main His arms ara onvarad