THEORY OF THE EARTH. 183 



The Negroes, the most degraded race among 

 men, whose forms approach the nearest to the 

 brutes, and whose intellect has not yet arrived at 

 the institution of regular governments, or at any 

 thing having the least appearance of systematic 

 knowledge, have preserved no sort of annals or 

 traditions. They cannot, therefore, afford us any 

 information on the subject of our present re- 

 searches, though all their characters clearly shew 

 us that they have escaped from the great catas- 

 trophe, at another point than the Caucasian and 

 Altaic races, from which they had perhaps been 

 separated for a long time previous to the occur- 

 rence of that catastrophe. 



But if the ancients, it is argued, have left no 

 history, their long existence as nations is not the 

 less attested by the advances which they have 

 made in astronomy, by observations whose date is 

 easily determined, and even by monuments which 

 still remain, and which themselves bear their 

 dates. Thus, the length of the year, such as the 

 Egyptians are supposed to have determined it, 

 according to the heliacal rising of Sirius, proves 

 correct for a period comprised between the year 

 3000 and the year 1000 before Christ, a period 

 to which the traditions of their conquests and of 

 the great prosperity of their empire also refer. 

 This accuracy proves to what perfection they had 

 carried their observations, and shews that they 



