divisions had been modified, the Seven Nomes were the following: (1) Memphites; (2) Heracleopolites; (3) Crocodilopolites, renamed Arsinoites; (4) Aphroditopolites; (5) Oxyrhynchites; (6) Cynopolites; and (7) Hermopolites. The Greater and Lesser Oases were always reckoned portions of the Heptanomis, and hence it must apparently have sent nine, and not seven, nomarchs to the general assembly in the Labyrinth. The capitals of the Nomes, whose names are sufficiently indicated by the respective appellations of the divisions themselves, e.g. Hermopolis of the Nomos Hermopolites, etc., were also the chief towns of the Middle Land. This district comprised the three greatest works of Egyptian art and enterprise, e. g., the Pyramids, the Labyrinth, and the artificial district formed by the canal Bahr-Jusuf (Canal of Joseph), the Nomos Arsinoites or the Fayyum (Fyoum). The Heptanomis extended from latitude 27°4′ North to 30° north; its boundary to south was the castle of Hermopolis (), to the north the apex of the Delta and the town of Cercasorum, on the west the irregular line of the Libyan Desert, and on the east, the hills which confine the Nile, or the sinuous outline, the recesses and projections of the Arabian mountains. Thus, near Hermopolis at the southern extremity of this region, the eastern hills approach very near the river, while those on the western or left bank recede to a considerable distance from it. Again, in latitude 29° north, the Libyan hills retire from the vicinity of the Nile, bend toward northwest, and sharply return to it by a curve to east, embracing the province of Arsinoë (formerly Crocodilopolis, now the city of Al Fayyum). Between the hills on which the Pyramids stand and the corresponding elevation of Gebel-el-Mokattam on the eastern bank of the river, the Heptanomis expands, until near Cercasorum it acquires almost the breadth of the subjacent Delta. The Heptanomis is remarkable for its quarries of stone and its rock-grottoes. Besides the Alabastrites, to the north of Antinoë the grottoes of Beni Hasan, the Speos Artemidos of the Greeks is found. Nine miles lower down are the grottoes of Kom el-Ahmar, and in the Arabian desert, on the east, quarries of the beautiful veined and white alabaster, which the Egyptians employed in their sarcophagi, and in the more delicate portions of their architecture. From the quarries of Tourah and Massarah, in the hills of Gebel-el-Mokattam, east of Memphis, they obtained the limestone used in