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"mail and two rifles lost, and two men in the boat narrowly escaping." Colonel Sparkes went so far as to suggest that hippopotami be treated as vermin and shot on sight. On the other hand, the news that provision is made for patrols, each containing six men, to prevent the slaughter of animals by poachers on the Rahad and Dinder Rivers, will be welcomed by many.

Minerals and Mineral Products.-Gold is found in many places in the Eastern Desert, and there are abundant proofs that the ancient Egyptians had many gold mines there, which they worked at a great profit. A number of sites have been worked by companies, and, according to Mr. J. Wells, the total returns of gold from two of them, i.e., the Nile Valley and the Umm Rûs, have amounted to £E.40,000. Gold to the value of about £30,000 has also been extracted by the Nile Valley Company from the Umm Garaiart mine. In the Western Desert, in the Oases of Khârgah and Dâkhlah, a deposit of gold has been found in a lower bed of phosphate rock which contains gold worth from a few pence to as much as 75. 6d. or 8s. per ton. In 1919-20 gold ingots to the value of £E.30,053 were produced. Copper is found in the Peninsula of Sinai, and we know that the famous copper mines of Wâdî Maghârah and Sarâbît al-Khâdim were worked under the early dynasties of Egyptian kings. Coal has been found in small seams, but until further investigations have been made it is impossible to say if they are worth working. Lead is found in the Eastern Desert, and the mines were worked by the Romans. Iron is found in many places, but without a cheap supply of fuel is not worth working. A few sulphur mines are known in the Eastern Desert. The famous emerald mines of Gabal Zâbarah were worked by the Greeks, Romans, and Arabs, and Mr. E. W. Streeter has obtained a concession to work them for thirty years. Extensive deposits of nitrates, phosphates, and alum have been found in the Western Desert. In 1919-20 phosphates to the value of £E.156,730 were produced. Egypt has in all ages been famed for the variety and beauty of its granite, basalt, sandstone, limestone, alabaster, marble, diorite, quartzite, porphyry, breccia, and veined and variegated stones of many kinds. Petroleum undoubtedly exists in the neighbourhood of Gabal Zêt (Oil Mountain), near the Red Sea, but the extent of the supply has not yet been thoroughly investigated. The kerosine produced in 1919-20 was worth

2

£E.17,921. Salt is common in Egypt; it is obtained chiefly from the lakes on the sea-coast, but many natives take their supply from the salt-springs and layers of rock-salt which are found at several places in the Western Desert. The greater part of the salt used in Lower Egypt comes from Lake Mareotis, near Alexandria. Up to 1892 all salt was sold direct by the Government at the price of 800 piastres a ton, but in that year a company was formed which bought the salt monopoly from the Government. This company sold salt to the people for 500 piastres a ton, and on every ton sold the Government received a royalty of 340 piastres. In 1904 about 60,000 tons of salt were consumed, and the revenue derived from the monopoly was £E.182,000. The monopoly pressed very heavily on the poor, and it gave rise to smuggling on a large scale, some 1,223 persons being fined or imprisoned for this offence in 1904, and the number of animals confiscated was 489. Lord Cromer regarded the monopoly as a blot on the fiscal system of Egypt, and it was therefore abolished from January 1st, 1906. The estimated loss to the revenue was £E. 175,000. The value of the salt produced in 1919-20 was £E.56,023. Soda or natron, which was so largely used in the processes of mummification, is obtained from Wâdî Natrûn. The mining industries of Egypt are at present only in their infancy, but it is clear that when the country has been carefully surveyed, large deposits of valuable earths, etc., will be found at many places. The value of the metallic ores produced in 1919-20 was £E.76,052. The policy of the Government is not to hurry the exploitation of the country, but to have the mines worked in its true interests.

III. ANCIENT AND MODERN DIVISIONS,
POPULATION, Etc.

I. Names of Egypt. The name by which the Delta, and probably also the cultivated land on both sides of the Nile as far south as Aswân, are designated in the Bible is Mizraim (Genesis x, 6), i.e., the "double Mizr," for the dual form of the word has led scholars to believe that it describes the two great divisions of Egypt, Lower and Upper. Some scholars think that 'Mizraim" is the Hebrew name for the two great walled enclosures of Egypt Northern Egypt and

Southern Egypt. The Greeks called the whole country* AIгYIITOZ, a name which is in reality derived from an ancient native name of Memphis, viz., Ḥet-ka-Ptaḥ, i.e., the "House of the Ka (or, double) of Ptah." The Copts transcribed this name by Eкent& ЕKEPTIA. Homer, who seems to be the first to use the name "ATTоs, makes the masculine form apply to the River Nile (Odys. iv, 477), and the feminine to the country itself (Odys. xvii, 448). From the Greek form of a name of Memphis came the Latin "Aegyptus," and, later, our “Egypt.” It has, however, been suggested that the original Egyptian word for Egypt was AGEB

that it means the "land of the flood,"

and

A www.which

was poured into Egypt from the great World-Ocean which surrounded the whole earth by the Flood-God Ageb

A very old Egyptian name for the country is Kamt,

i.e., the "black land," the allusion, of course, being to the colour of the soil; from this name is derived the Coptic Kême, or Kêmi, or Khême. Among the many other names which the Egyptians called their country may be mentioned BAQET, i.e., the "land of the olive," TA-MERA, i.e., the “land of the inundation." From the earliest to the latest times the Egyptians referred to their country as TAUI,

II

i.e., the "Two Lands," and this name indicates that Egypt was always divided into two parts, viz., the "Land of the North," i.e., Lower Egypt, and the "Land of the South," i.e., Upper Egypt.

in

For administrative purposes Ancient Egypt was, dynastic times, divided into districts, to which classical writers gave the name of nomes. The number of these varies in the different accounts given by Greek and Roman writers from thirty-six to forty; there appears to be some reason for thinking that the nomes were forty-two in number: Lower Egypt containing twenty, and Upper Egypt twenty-two. In quite late times the Greeks divided Egypt into three parts-Upper, Central, and Lower Egypt; Central Egypt contained seven nomes, and was called Heptanomis.

2. A List of the ancient Egyptian names of the divisions or provinces of Egypt, and their capital cities and gods.

Names printed in heavy type are Egyptian; those in capitals are Greek; and those in italics are the names by which the places are known by the modern Arabs :

Upper Egypt.