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Archeology what he has done for Science and Natural History. 
Would that I could venture to hope that I could express in brief 
space as much as he has done, and in the same lucid and polished 
diction ; but I must be content to place before you in homelier 
language, and in shorter compass, the results of modern Archzxo- 
logical achievement. The field is so varied, and the matter so 
plentiful, that I must restrict this address chiefly to our own 
country, and to our own locality, as were I to enter largely upon 
foreign discoveries, we should be carried far beyond the limit of 
an ordinary address. The minds of educated men are now so 
alive to the importance of Archeological Investigation, and such 
an interest has been stirred up both by our own and Foreign 
Archeological Societies, that discoveries pour in from all quarters, 
which keep our scholars very actively employed. 
It has been observed that—“ By Archeology is understood the 
study of all times and places, and it divides itself into several 
branches, as Palzography, or the study of the forms of letters 
and inscriptions ; Epigraphy, or the consideration of their con- 
tents ; and the study of figured antiquity, or of the shapes and 
meaning of sculpture, painting, and symbolical representations. 
The main objects of Archeology are to preserve from destruc- 
tion the precious relics of the past, and to aid in the development 
and discovery of historic truth. History itself is dependent on 
the existence of contemporary monuments, and the annals of 
some nations, as the Egyptians, Assyrians, Phcenicians, and other 
Semitic races, are preserved on monuments alone.”* 
FIRST THEN, AS REGARDS EGYPT. 
There has been a great advance in the knowledge of ancient 
Egyptian monuments, during the last fifty years, and of hiero- 
glyphics during the last twenty-five. This has been accomplished 
* See inaugural address by Dr. Birch, delivered to the Archeological 
Inst, Section of Antiq., July, 1866, Archeological Journal, vol, xxiv, 
