THEORY OF THE EARTH. 159 



In order to judge of the nature of the chro- 

 nicles which the Egyptian priests pretended to 

 possess, it is only necessary to review the extracts 

 which have heen given by themselves at different 

 periods, and to different individuals. 



Those of Sais, for example, informed Solon, 

 ahout 550 years before Christ, that, as Egypt 

 was not subject to deluges, they had preserved 

 not only their own annals, but those of other na- 

 tions also; that the cities of Athens and Sais had 

 been built by Minerva, the former 9000 years 

 before, the latter only 8000 ; and to these dates 

 they added the well known fables respecting 'the 

 Atlantes, and the resistance which the ancient 

 Athenians opposed to their conquests, together 

 with the whole romantic description of the At- 

 lantis*, a description in which we find events 

 and genealogies similar to those of all mythologi- 

 cal romances. 



A century later, about 450 years before Christ, 

 the priests of Memphis gave entirely different 

 accounts to Herodotus f . Menes, the first king 

 of Egypt, according to them, had built Memphis, 

 and inclosed the Nile within dikes, as if it were 

 possible that the first king of a country could 



* See Plato's Timaeus and Critias. 

 t Euterpe, chap. xcix. et seq. 



