CHAPTER XXVI. 



What The Future May Develop 



T F we shall turn back the curtain of time and look down 

 through the centuries to the dim horizon when man began 

 to leave records of his mental achievements, we will find that 

 civilization has been a constant succession of rises and falls 

 of human effort. Nations have sprung up, have developed 

 into greatness, have flourished in splendor and power and 

 have then passed into decay and oblivion. 



The "Rosetta Stone" brought to England in 1 802 was the 

 key that unlocked the hidden mysteries of the early Egyp- 

 tians and added an account of their early activities to our 

 storehouse of knowledge. During the present and past cen- 

 tury, excavations in what once was Assyria, Babylonia, Meso- 

 potamia, Egypt, Greece, Chaldea and many other places 

 have revealed to us a succession of ancient kingdoms and 

 empires in these places. Cities were built upon the ruins of 

 other cities. These cities flourished, many of them for long 

 periods of time and when they were destroyed, other cities 

 would spring up on their ruins. For a long time many 

 believed that the Troy of King Priam was a mythical city 

 but explorations have proved it to have been real. It had 

 been destroyed ages before the time of the blind poet. 

 Homer, but excavations have revealed that it had been built 

 on the ruins of several other cities. The ruins of these cities 

 have left traces of the civilizations of their particular time. 



[278] 



