A Description of the First or Aswan, Cataract of the Nile

Abstract

AMONG the numerous valuable memoirs that have issued from the Egyptian Survey Department under the energetic administration of Captain Lyons, none is likely to prove of greater general interest to the public than this work of Dr. Ball. The easy accessibility of Aswan to visitors sojourning at Cairo, the wealth of objects of antiquarian interest in its neighbourhood, and the existence of that great engineering feat—the Nile dam—ensure the result of a constantly increasing stream of tourists to the district; and although the English, German and French guide-books to Egypt, published by Murray, Baedeker and Hachette respectively, have such a well-deserved reputation, yet the complete topographical and geological survey of the district, made by so competent an official as the author, has enabled him to supply many precise data and new observations not hitherto accessible; to the writers of these guide-books. Dr. Ball, indeed, comes with excellent qualifications to the task before him; a good geologist, with special knowledge of petrography, he is at the same time skilled in surveying and engineering matters, while the account which he gives of the literature bearing on the district (pp. 157–20) shows that he has not been unmindful of the importance of this branch of knowledge in connection with a country having such a past as Egypt.

A Description of the First or Aswan, Cataract of the Nile.

By Dr. John Ball. Pp. 121; with 13 maps and plates, and 20 illustrations in the text. (Cairo: National Printing Department, 1907.) Price 200 milliemes.