576 THE UNIVERSE. 



Laplace proved that their calculations had been made after 

 the events, and, moreover, that they were false. Bentley 

 even asserted that they were composed only 700 years ago. 



The Egyptians, though less pretentious, nevertheless car- 

 ried back the origin of their nation to a period much more 

 remote than is consistent with fact. When Herodotus vis- 

 ited their country, the priests told him that they possessed a 

 history which dated back 11,340 years; and in order to 

 give a semblance of veracity to their recitals, they added 

 that during this space of time the sun had twice risen near 

 the horizon where it sets. 



The cyclopean monuments, the vastness of which aston- 

 ishes us, seem to be the result of labors which belong to the 

 infancy of society. The almost shapeless stones of which 

 they are composed, and the enormous proportions of their 

 architecture, which in no way approaches that of the Greeks, 

 have led authors to ascribe the execution of these monu- 

 ments to the first men who inhabited the earth ; and some 

 of the learned, exaggerating their antiquity, have regarded 

 them as anterior to the deluge. But these vast construc- 

 tions, more extraordinary for their mass than for the taste 

 displayed in their construction, seem to have been reared by 

 a sea-faring people to resist the encroachments of the sea. 

 Although there is some difference of opinion among the 

 learned as to the epoch to which they belong, everything 

 seems to prove that they were erected by the Phoenicians. 



Astronomical monuments support the antiquity of the 

 human race still less. The famous zodiac of Denderah, to 

 which Dupuis accords an antiquity of 15,000 years, is con- 

 sidered by the astronomer Delambre as later than the epoch 



