i?6 GEOLOGY AND HISTORY 



and it might be retorted that archaeologists represent 

 the Egyptian government as dating from a period 

 when the Nile valley was an inland district, and 

 when the centres of human population must have 

 been, principally at least, on lands now submerged. 



As an example of the fanciful way in which this 

 subject is sometimes treated, I may cite the fabulous 

 antiquity attributed to the great sphinx of Gizeh. 

 We are told that it is the most ancient monument in 

 Egypt, antedating the pyramids, and belonging to the 

 time of the mystic * Horshesu,' or people of Horus, of 

 Egyptian tradition. In one sense this is true, since 

 the sphinx is merely an undisturbed mass of the 

 eocene limestone of the plateau. But its form must 

 have been given to it after the surrounding limestone 

 was quarried away by the builders of the pyramids, 

 and consequently long after the founding of Mem- 

 phis by the first Egyptian king Mena. The sphinx 

 is, in short, a block of stone left by the quarry men, 

 and probably shaped by them as an appropriate 

 monument to the workmen who died while the 

 neighbouring pyiamids were being built. A similar 

 monument, of immensely greater antiquity from a 

 geological point of view, exists near Montreal, in a 

 huge boulder of Laurentian gneiss, placed on a 

 pedestal by the workmen employed on the Victoria 

 Bridge, in memory of immigrants who died of ship 

 fever in the years when the bridge was being built. 



It follows from all this that the monumental his- 

 tory of Egypt, extending to about 3000 years B.C., 



