Cairo
EGYPT library containing a splendid collection of illuminated copies of the Koran; a magnetic observatory, and the Mohammedan college of El Ahzar (originally a mosque), the principal university of the Mohammedan world, attended by 8,000 to 10,000 students from all parts of the East. The suburb of Masr-el-Atîqa, or Old Cairo (first called Fostat, "tenttown"), was the site of the original Cairo, founded about 642 by the Sultan Amru, the town on the present site, a little to the N. of Old Cairo, not having Mountain and Southern, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis and the St. Louis Southwestern railroads; 150 miles S. E. of St. Louis. It is the trade center of southern Illinois, and has freight and passenger steamer communications with all river ports, important manufactures, daily and weekly newspapers, national banks, etc. Pop. (1910) 14,548; (1920) 15,203.