TWENTY-THIRD ORDINARY MEETING. 283 



and where are to be seen columns and capitals carved with a delicacy 

 and fidelity to nature not excelled in the palmiest days of Grecian 

 Art. 



In the Egyptian language there is a subject of deep interest to 

 every philologist, as well as to every investigator into the origin and 

 development of the early races to whom we owe so much. 



In order to detei'mine the fundamental nature of the Egyptian 

 language, it would be of immense advantage could we determine the 

 original locus of the race prior to its immigration into the Nile valley. 

 One theory is that the race was Hamitic, and came into the Nile 

 valley and the Delta from Ethiopia, which probably repi-esented 

 modern Nubia and Abyssinia. The race, however, seems to have 

 come westward from the Accadian Highlands and the Euphrates 

 valley. They could reach Ethiopia by two ways, either by taking 

 a south-westerly route until they came to the Mediterranean, and 

 thence to the fertile plain of the Delta, or by coming south 

 through Arabia, and then crossing the Arabian Gulf, they could have 

 penetrated the desert, near Siiakim, or any suitable landing place in 

 that region, and thence reached any part of the interior. It is 

 scarcely credible, however, that any branch of the primitive stock 

 would have undertaken a march through the terrible desert of the 

 Arabian Peninsula, and would have accomplished a much more peril- 

 ous task of crossing the Arabian Gulf. A long march southward 

 along the Persian Gulf, and then a passage over the Indian Ocean, 

 south of the Arabian Peninsula, would have been a much more 

 improbable enterprise. The ancient line of travel, between Egy23t 

 and the countries on the north-east of her, extended along the 

 Mediterranean shore, through Phcenicia and Syria to Babylon and 

 Ninevet. Moreover, it is an admitted fact that the oldest monu- 

 ments are in lower or northern Egypt. The Pyramids, the monuments 

 of Memphis, the temple of Heliopolis, and the ancient one at 

 Dender-ah, are much older than those of the south. This would seem 

 to indicate that the original Egyptians settled first in the north, and 

 gradually moved southward as enterprise or social necessity or war 

 forced them. 



Besides it is a logical and forcible inference that there would have 

 been Nigritic blood in the veins of the early Egyptians if they had 

 been either the original inhabitants of Ethiopia, or had by conquest 

 or treaty settled in pre-historic times among the original inhabitants 



