442 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



high, cut from a single block, and computed to weigh over seventy-five tons. 

 Back of the spot where once Memphis stood lies the largest and oldest cemetery 

 in the world. It is over twenty miles long, from six to eighteen miles in breadth, 

 and is estimated to contain the remains of not less than 25,000,000 people. A 

 recent writer says that it is impossible to go 100 feet without seeing skulls' or 

 other bones, while the limbs of mummies here and there protrude from the 

 ground. In the limestone rock that underlies the desert everywhere there are 

 innumerable pits, evidently for the burial of the middle and lower classes, and 

 in these the bodies are stacked up like cordword, six or eight courses deep, all 

 carefully embalmed, and looking as fresh as if placed there yesterday. The 

 most revolting thing about the present condition of the cemetery is the fact that 

 the natives of the country may be seen any day using the bodies of their ances- 

 tors for fuel and then employing the ashes to fertilize their fields. In this ceme- 

 tery are also the burial places and sarcophagi of the sacred bulls of the Egyp- 

 tians. Hundreds of these sarcophagi have been unearthed, each sufficient in size 

 to contain the body of a large bull, and each hewn from a single block of granite. 

 The temple which once stood over the vaults containing the mummies of the 

 bulls was for ages buried under seventy feet of sand, but has recently been un- 

 earthed sufficiently to show its great extent and what must have been an unex- 

 ampled splendor. The secret of the remarkable care in preserving the bodies of 

 both man and beasts is found in the fact that the Egyptians regarded this life as 

 transitory, but the grave as an eternal abiding-place. 



The English army, from the day of its entrance into Egypt to its arrival at 

 Khartoum, will steam through a continual double line of buried cities on both 

 sides of the River Nile. After Memphis, with its great cemetery, has been 

 passed a number of smaller cities follow each other in quick succession, their 

 local names and traditions being well preserved, but there is no place of great 

 importance until Thebes, 600 miles from the sea, is reached. This was the 

 capital of Upper Egypt, was built on both sides of the Nile, and from the numer- 

 ous canals seems to have been a sort of ancient Venice. The remains of two 

 huge temples comprise all that now remain of the city, which take their names 

 from two local villages, Karnak and Luxor. The Exposition building at New 

 Orleans covers, it is said, an area of nearly thirty acres, and is a temporary build- 

 ing of glass and iron, but the great temple of Jupiter Ammon at Karnak had a 

 covered area of forty acres; the temple enclosure was ninety acres in extent, 

 and of all the thousands of columns that enter into the structure no two are 

 alike. There were many halls in this temple 350 feet long by half that in breadth, 

 and the entire edifice, in extent and grandeur, it is believed, surpassed any other 

 creation of man. It is especially to be remembered that this triumph architect- 

 ure was erected in the days of Joseph, and was the center of a system of smaller 

 temples which surrounded it for several miles in every direction. The frontier 

 city of ancient Egypt was Assouan, the present city of this name being built on 

 its predecessor, which lies many feet beneath the sand. The old Assouan is 

 specially famous for its inscriptions, many important records having been recov- 



