The principal pieces in circulation are the pound; 20, 10, 5, 2 and 1 piastre pieces (silver) ; 1, Y2, 1/5 and 1/10 of a piastre (nickel), and 54 and 1/40 piastre for copper pieces.
The unit of capacity is the ardeb, equal to 43.759 English gallons or 5.44739 bushels. Its approximate weight is 315 rolls for wheat and maize, 320 rolls for beans, 250 rolls for barley and 260 rolls for cotton seed. Weights are the okieh= 1.3206 English ounces, the rotl 0.99069 English pounds, the ake=2.7513 pounds and the Kantor= 100 rotls or 36 okes or 99.0492 pounds. Linear measures are the diraa baladi = 22.8350 inches; the diraa-mimari= 29.5281 inches, and the kassaba= 139.7663 inches. For square measure: the feddan= 7.468 square pics; pic=.0.562 square metres == 0.936 inches.
Railways, Telegraphs and the —On 1 Jan. 1915 there were 2,065 miles of rail! way under state control (exclusive of the Sudan Military Railway) and 816 miles of light railways privately owned. In 1914, 3,594,049 tons of freight were carried, and 24.215,000 passengers, with net receipts of $1,061,912. Telephones and telegraphs belonging to the Egyptian government on 1 Jan. 1915 had a total length of 9,230 kilometers, the length of the wires being 21,882 kilometers. The Eastern Telegraph Company has (by concessions) lines across Egypt from Port Said to Suez and from Alexandria (via Cairo) to Suez. There were in 1914 1,937 post-offices and stations in Egypt.
Army and On 19 Sept. 1882, the organization of the Egyptian army was placed in the hands of a British officer, with the title of Sirdar. Military service is compulsory, but since a very small army is maintained only a very small portion of the men of military age are in the ranks. The term of service is three years. The forces consist of administration officials, four squadrons of cavalry, nine Egyptian and seven Sudanese battalions of infantry, a camel corps, artillery and sanitation corps, engineers and railway corps, and a veterinary corps. There is a total of 138 Eng lish officers, 709 Egyptian officers and 18,381 Eng lish soldiers. The army of occupation, or the English garrison, consists of a cavalry regiment, a battery of artillery, a mountain battery, a com pany of engineers and four battalions. It is stationed in the Delta. Moreover, in the Sudan, there is a battalion of infantry and a detach ment of artillery. The total English force
numbers 6,067 men of all arms. The Egyptian government makes an annual budget provision of $750,000 for the maintenance of the English force. The navy consists of a steamer for coast and lighthouse service, five revenue cut ters, two of which are steam vessels, five skiffs, 11 schooners and one school ship. On the Upper Nile are three steamers and eight gun boats. No details are available since the out break of the European War, when the defense of the country was undertaken largely by troops from the overseas Dominions, aided by British warships in the Suez Canal. See section His tory—Egypt during the European War.
The origin of the Egyptians is unknown. Ethnologists have endeavored to establish a relationship with the peoples of the south, any differences being accounted for by variations of environment. Philologists have looked to the East for their next of kin as re gards descent as well as speech. It has been thought by some that an Eastern origin is indi cated by the fact that the Egyptian oriented himself by looking to the south, but this is rather due to the direction of the Nile. Be tween the results thus reached there is an evident conflict, with no obvious means of harmonizing them. It has been suggested that the facts can best he reconciled upon the theory, not of a migration of a whole people, but of an incursion of a smaller band who suc ceeded in establishing their rule over the original people and in gradually forcing their own language, as that of a ruling class, upon those whom they had subjugated, while still the ancient ethnological type persisted. This theory is merely a working hypothesis, and it has reference to a time long anterior to any historical monuments or traditions, for long before the earliest extant inscription Egypt was a united country under the rule of native kings, and possessed of a well and independently de veloped government and of well-defined classes of society. Judging from the language and the physical condition of the mummies of ancient Egypt, the population appears to have been of mixed origin, part Asiatic and part Nigritic; and there seems also to have been an aboriginal race of copper color, with rather thin legs, large feet, high cheek-bones and large lips; both types are represented on the monuments.