58 



DISCOVERY 



arm outstretched up against tht iirder-side of a mantel- 

 piece or such-like object. A different but rather weaker 

 result, in which the arm will move upwards in front of 

 the bcdy, may be obtained by pressing the back of the 

 hand in a parallel instead of horizontal position 

 against the wall. 



***** 



This year may be aptly considered as the Centenary 

 of Eg\'ptology,iforin 1822 a young Frenchman, Cham- 

 pollion, the son of a bookseller in the Departcment du 

 Lot, discovered a definite clue to the interpretation of 

 Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics on the fam.ous tri- 

 lingual Rosetta Stone. The stone had been found by 

 Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in 1799. In 1802 a 

 Swede named Akerblad had deciphered several words 

 of Ancient Egyptian on the stone, and Grotefend at 

 Gottingen had guessed the names of the Achamenid 

 kings in the cuneiform writings of the Persian Empire ; 

 while in 1819 an English physicist, Thomas Young, 

 was able to make partial interpretations of groups of 

 hieroglyphic words. But ChampoHion, during the ten 

 years that followed his discovery, worked out and pub- 

 lished a large vocabulary. The results of his researches, 

 on which a good deal of doubt was cast after his death, 

 were confirmed by Lepsius in France in 1837. The 

 study of Egyptology began to grow apace, and was 

 fostered by the Vicomte Emmanuel de Rouge in Paris, 

 Birch in London, Brugschin Berlin, Chabas in Chalons- 

 sur-Mame, Goodwin in Cambridge, and Mariette in 

 Egypt. 



During the later years of the nineteenth century, 

 and during this century, the development of photo- 

 graphy has greatly assisted the efforts of Egyptologists 

 in the work of collation and publication. With the 

 first translations and publications of inscriptions and 

 documents on a large scale, the name of Professor 

 Maspero, who is the Director of Antiquities in Egypt, 

 will always be associated. The other great name that 

 will be associated with the last forty years of Egypto- 

 logy is that of Professor Flinders Petrie, who in- 

 augurated, and has brought to a high degree of per- 

 fection, the work of scientific excavation. Amongst 

 his principal discoveries have been those of the Greek 

 settlements at Naukratis and Daphnae, a prehistoric 

 Egyptian at Koptos and at Naqada, the kings of the 

 earliest dynasties at Abydos, and the palaces of 

 Memphis. One of his most notable exploits has been 

 the reduction to a minute degree of historical exacti- 

 tude of the eariiest centuries of ancient Egyptian 

 civilisation before written inscriptions had been in- 

 vented, and his article in this number of our journal 



1 For further information see "The Times" Literary Supple- 

 ment, Thursday, February 2, 1922. 



deals, amongst other matters, with the methods 

 adopted for this purpose. 



There has been considerable talk of late about air- 

 ship services between Germany and the United States 

 and between Spain and South America. Aeroplane 

 services are rapidly multiplying on the Continent and 

 in the United States ; moreover, the safety and comfort 

 of this form of flight have been greatly increased even 

 during the last year. Of particular interest, so far 

 as our Empire is concerned, is the Government's ^ 

 offer to subsidise air companies in Australia willing to 

 operate between Geraldton and Derby (1,195 miles), 

 Sydney and Adelaide (795 miles), and Sydney and 

 Brisbane (590 miles), and the regular weekly aerial 

 mail which our Air Force has been operating since last 

 August on the new route between Cairo and Baghdad. 

 But despite the success of heavier-than-air flight it 

 becomes increasingly apparent that lighter-than-air 

 machines are more likely to solve the problem of linking 

 up our Empire, so far at least as the immediate future 

 is concerned. We were glad to find that the Wliite 

 Paper issued by the Air Ministry last December states 

 that " the potentialities of airships for speeding up 

 communications within the Empire were recognised by 

 the Conference of Prime Ministers held in June- 

 August, and, in accordance with the Government's 

 decision, no steps are being taken in regard to the final 

 disposal of existing airships and material until the 

 Dominion Prime Ministers have had an opportunity 

 of consulting their Governments as to whether contri- 

 butions should be made towards the commercial opera- 

 tion of Imperial airship services. The airships and 

 material are being stored until these decisions have 

 been communicated." The problem occupied the 

 attention of the Air Conference held from February 6 

 to 8 last, and a stimulating paper was read thereon by 

 Major G. H. Scott, of the Australian Flying Corps. Most 

 of the airships destined for use on the trans-Atlantic 

 services mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph 

 are being built by German engineers. We have, how- 

 ever, several airships which could be speedily com- 

 missiened for Imperial and trans-Atlantic flight, and 

 we feel sure that, given the necessary financial backing, 

 our engineers can produce types of still better design and 

 workmanship than the ones at present in existence. 

 ***** 



Certain psycho-analysts would have us believe that 

 the desire to wander, which affects most of us very 

 strongly at some time or other of our liv-es, and which 

 many a man has taken to his grave, is a " neurosis " — 

 a wish to escape from unhappy surroundings or obliga- 



2 See The Fifth Half-yearly Report on the Progress of Civil 

 A viation at Home and A broad issued by the Air Ministry, Decem- 

 ber 23, 1921. 



