152 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the Babylonian towers, there is no doubt, for, though Birs-Nimrud is 

 now a ruinous heap, the classical descriptions of such temples, and the 

 cuneiform inscriptions, put it beyond question that they had seven 

 stages, dedicated to the seven planets. As to the Egyptian pyramids, 

 the archaeologists Segato and Masi positively state of one step-pyramid 

 of Abur-sir, that it had seven decreasing stages, while, on the other 

 hand, Vyse's reconstruction of the step-pyramid of Sakkara shows 

 there only six. Considering the ruinous state of all three step-pyra- 

 mids, it will require careful measurement to settle whether they origi- 

 nally had seven stages or not. If they had, the correspondence can 

 not be set down to accident, but must be taken to prove a connection 

 between Chaldea and Egypt as to the worship of the seven planets, 

 which will be among the most ancient links connecting the civiliza- 

 tions of the world. I hope, by thus calling attention to the question, 

 to induce some competent architect visiting Egypt to place the matter 

 beyond doubt, one way or the other. 



While speaking of the high antiquity of civilization in Egypt, the 

 fact calls for remark that the use of iron as well as bronze in that 

 country seems to go back as far as historical record reaches. Brugsch 

 writes in his '* Egypt under the Pharaohs," that Egypt throws scorn 

 on the archaeologists' assumed successive periods of stone, bronze, and 

 iron. The eminent historian neglects, however, to mention facts 

 which give a different complexion to the early Egyptian use of metals, 

 namely, that chipped flints, apparently belonging to a prehistoric Stone 

 age, are picked up plentifully in Egypt, while the sharp stones or stone 

 knives used by the embalmers seem also to indicate an earlier time 

 when these were the cutting instruments in ordinary use. Thus there 

 are signs that the Metal age in Egypt, as elsewhere in the world, was 

 preceded by a Stone age, and, if so, the high antiquity of the use of 

 metal only throws back to a still higher antiquity the use of stone. 

 The ancient iron-working in Egypt is, however, the chief of a grouj) 

 of facts which are now affecting the opinions of anthropologists on 

 the question whether the Bronze age everywhere preceded the Iron 

 age. In regions where, as in Africa, iron-ore occurs in such a state 

 that it can, after mere heating in the fire, be forged into implements, 

 the invention of iron-working would be more readily made than that 

 of the composite metal bronze, which perhaps indicates a previous 

 use of copper, afterward improved on by an alloy of tin. Professor 

 Rolleston, in a recent address on the Iron, Bronze, and Stone ages, 

 insists with reason that soft iron may have been first in the hands of 

 many tribes, and may have been superseded by bronze as a preferable 

 material for tools and w^eapons. We moderns, used to fine and cheap 

 steel, hardly do justice to the excellence of bronze, or gun-metal as we 

 should now call it, in comparison with any material but steel. I well 

 remember ray own surprise at seeing in the Naples Museum that the 

 surgeons of Herculaneum and Pompeii used instruments of bronze. 



