INTRODUCTION. 



by the representation of vegetables that are 

 foreign to their climate. 



Brown says in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 

 (( that of all men that suffered from the confu- 

 sion of Babel, the Egyptians found the best 

 evasion ; for, though words were confounded, 

 they invented a language of things, and spake 

 unto each other by common notions in nature, 

 whereby they discoursed in silence, and were 

 intuitively understood from the theory of 

 their expressions : for they assumed the shapes 

 of animals common unto all eyes, and by 

 their conjunctions and compositions were able 

 to communicate their conceptions unto any 

 that comprehended the syntaxis of their 

 natures/' 



The labours of M. Champollion in deci- 

 phering the ancient Egyptian Papyri at the 

 Royal Museum at Turin, have proved this 

 emblematical writing to have existed prior to 

 the days of the Pharaohs. 



