A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



and by such distinguished latter-day workers as Chabas, 

 Mariette, Maspero, Amelineau, and De Morgan among 

 the Frenchmen; Professor Petrie and Dr. Budge in 

 England ; and Brugsch Pasha and Professor Erman in 

 Germany, not to mention a large coterie of somewhat 

 less familiar names. These men working, some of 

 them in the field of practical exploration, some as 

 students of the Egyptian language and writing, have 

 restored to us a tolerably precise knowledge of the 

 history of Egypt from the time of the first histori- 

 cal king, Mena, whose date is placed at about the 

 middle of the fifth century B.C. We know not merely 

 the names of most of the subsequent rulers, but some- 

 thing of the deeds of many of them; and, what is vastly 

 more important, we know, thanks to the modern inter- 

 pretation of the old literature, many things concerning 

 the life of the people, and in particular concerning their 

 highest culture, their methods of thought, and their 

 scientific attainments, which might well have been 

 supposed to be past finding out. Nor has modern in- 

 vestigation halted with the time of the first kings ; the 

 recent explorations of such archaeologists as Amelineau, 

 De Morgan, and Petrie have brought to light numer- 

 ous remains of what is now spoken of as the predynastic 

 period a period when the inhabitants of the Nile Val- 

 ley used implements of chipped stone, when their pot- 

 tery was made without the use of the potter's wheel, 

 and when they buried their dead in curiously cramped 

 attitudes without attempt at mummification. These 

 aboriginal inhabitants of Egypt cannot perhaps with 

 strict propriety be spoken of as living within the his- 

 torical period, since we cannot date their relics with 



