68 EEV. F. A. WALKEEj D.D., F.L.S., ON 



bably a contemporary of Joseph, who according to the best 

 chronology, lived at that time and not at the time of the Hyksos 

 kings, as you are often told. Thothmss engraved the characters 

 on the middle of each face. Those on the two sides were cut for 

 Rameses II, the oppressor of the Hebrews, and whose sister or 

 daughter was foster-mother to Moses. 



I think Professor Petrie has shown how the work was done. The 

 Egyptians used hollow drills, and so Avorked holes into the granite 

 and these drilled holes corresponding with the figures or hiero- 

 glyphics, they broke away the cores and connecting pieces, and 

 thereby cut these deep and enduring inscriptions. ISTo doubt 

 Rameses' workmen went up to the top of the obelisk, held up by 

 stages and ropes, and so drilled the characters without taking it 

 down. 



One of the pieces on the table is from one of the pair of obelisks at 

 Karnak, which are the lai'gest in Egypt, and were set up by the 

 great Queen Hatasu. One has fallen and the other is standing. I 

 looked at the top of the fallen one, and I can assure you that the 

 surface of that stone is most carefully worked and polished, and in 

 that fine climate it remains so to the present day. There is no 

 scamped work about it. At the top of the monument, which no one 

 could see closely, the whole surface is beautifully cut. That is the 

 style of work that these people carried out. No wonder that Hero- 

 dotus was astonished at it ! and we, too, when we see this monu- 

 ment on the Embankment, which, I believe, is the largest quarried 

 stone in Great Britain, and yet it was probably quarried at a time 

 when Joseph was Prime Minister of Egypt, or perhaps before. So 

 you see it is an illustration of what these people could do 

 with their comparatively small mechanical means. It is also com- 

 memorative of two of the most important points where, accord- 

 ing to Bible history, early Israel came into contact with Egypt. 



The author has made some remarks of great interest on other 

 things as well : amongst them, the fossil shells of Egypt. These 

 attracted the attention of Herodotus, as well as of later students. 

 The greater part of them belong to the lower tertiary, of the same 

 age as the London clay. These fossil shells are very abundant on 

 the banks of the Nile, and especially near Cairo. But other 



