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On the Origin of the Nilotic or Egyptian Population, By 

 Samuel George Morton, M.D. 



Since the physical characteristics of the ancient Nilotic 

 population, as derived from history and the monuments, coin- 

 cide, in a remarkable manner, with the facts derived from 

 anatomical comparison, it becomes necessary to offer some 

 explanation of these results ; or, to shew at what period, 

 and under what circumstances, several different branches of 

 the Caucasian race were blended into a single nation, pos- 

 sessing more or less the chracteristics of each, and this, again, 

 modified in degree by another race wholly different from 

 either. It is, in the first place, necessary to recur to the fact 

 of the very long occupation of Egypt by successive dynas- 

 ties of Hykshos, or Shepherd Kings, and that these were not 

 of one but of several nations — Phoenicians, Pelasgi, and 

 Scythians; while to these followed, at a long interval, an 

 Ethiopian or Austral-Egyptian dynasty. Each of these great 

 revolutions must have tended, in turn, to the amalgamation of 

 the Egyptians with other nations ; and this result may be 

 referred to three principal epochs, independently of several 

 subordinate ones. 



The first epoch embraces the dynasty of the Hykshos or 

 Shepherd Kings, commencing before Christ two thousand 

 and eighty, and having a duration of two hundred and sixty 

 years. 



It is important, however, to observe, that Josephus, quoting 

 Manetho, makes the Hykshos dynasty last five hundred and 



perficial inch of surface. The electrical current derived from 2 cells of 

 baniell's battery, 1 quart each, gave the observed temperature, room 68% 

 negative pole 71% positive pole 73^°. The same batter}^ acting on silver 

 capsules decomposing a salt of silver, shewed changes in temperature of 

 2 less. When small quantities of the fluids were used in the voltameter, 

 1 found the temperatures before beginning the electrical part of the ex- 

 periments frequently 2° below that of the surrounding air. This was evi- 

 dently a hygrometric effect, but the two sources of change of tempera- 

 ture, namely the unequal heating efiect of an electrical current and rapid 

 evaporation when acting together, might very readily be mistaken for 

 the development of cold by electricity. 



