370 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[April 



1885, the same indefatigable explorer discovered and 

 partly worked the site of the long-lost city of Naukratis, 

 the famous Greek Emporium, of which we read in the 

 pages of Herodotus and Athenseus ; and to this site he 

 returned in 1886, accompanied by Mr. F. Llewellyn 

 Griffith and Mr. Ernest A. Gardner (now Director of the 

 English School at Athens). These gentlemen who are 

 exposed to severe hardship, and who work often at great 

 risk to life and health, receive no payment whatever, the 

 explorers being simply reimbursed for actual outlay. 



They were fully empowered by the Egyptian Govern- 

 ment to conduct the work they had taken in hand, on 

 condition that all objects discovered should be submitted 

 to the authorities of the National Egyptian Museum at 

 Boulak ; and it was further conceded that when the 

 claims of the Egyptian Collection should be satisfied, the 

 remaining objects should be at the disposal of the Fund. 

 The Committee of the Fund accordingly divide the objects 

 thus acquired between the British Museum, the Museum 

 of Fine Arts, Boston, U.S.A., and various local museums 

 in Great Britain and America. 



M. Naville's first discovery, that of the site of Pithom, 

 is perhaps of the widest interest to English readers as 

 being connected with one of the best-known passages in 

 Biblical history, viz., the oppression of the children of 

 Israel by Pharaoh — Rameses II. of the XlXth 

 Dynasty. 



Lower Egypt is intimately bound up with the early 

 fortunes of the Hebrew nation — the South-eastern Delta 

 being for five hundred years as much the fatherland of 

 the descendants of Jacob as modern Egypt is now of the 

 descendants of Amr's Arab hordes. The pastures 

 of Goshen were theirs by right of gift and settlement. 

 With their oppression by Rameses the Great begins 

 the most dramatically interesting part of the Old Testa- 

 ment narrative. The first chapter of Exodus tells us 

 that " they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and 

 Raamses," but until M. Naville, excavating on the banks 

 of the Freshwater Canal, near Tel-el-Maskhutah, dug out 

 the very store chambers which the hands of the Israelites 

 had raised thirty-three centuries ago (about 1400 B.C.), 

 the sites of these cities were but conjecturally identi- 

 fied. 



The city thus discovered was at first supposed to be 

 Raamses, and, indeed, the few modern houses there 

 bore that name ; but the statues and inscriptions which 

 ■were subsequently found proclaimed it to be the twin 

 city Pithom, the " Succoth " of the Hebrews, in the 

 surrounding district of which they halted on the first 

 day of the Exodus. The problem of the route of the 

 Exodus was therefore, by the discovery of Pithom, at 

 last finally solved. 



Here M. Naville, with the 100 native workmen he 

 daily employed, brought to light a great wall 24 ft. thick, 

 some remains of a temple, and those curious subterra- 

 neous structures which we may designate as granaries, 

 magazines or store chambers. They are square, solidly- 

 built cellars of all sizes, divided by walls 10 ft. thick, and 

 having neither doors nor windows, so that they were 

 probably destined to be filled or emptied from the top. 



The faultlessly perpendicular walls are of brickwork, 

 the surface of which is as smooth as mere Nile mud can 

 be made ; and they are bedded in with thin mortar. 

 M. Naville turned over thousands of these bricks, without 

 finding a single royal mark of the Pharaoh stamped upon 

 them, like the one in the Berlin Museum which Lepsius 

 states came from this very site. 



It would be difficult to find a more curious confirmation 

 of a minor historical detail than that which M. Navilles'' 

 report gives to the fifth chapter of Exodus. He tells us 

 the bricks are of three qualities ; the best being pro- 

 perly mixed with straw ; the next, in the absence 

 of straw being made with reeds (rendered " stubble " 

 in the Bible) ; and the worst consisting only of mud, 

 when the supply of reeds was exhausted. 



From the accompanying illustration it will be seen that 

 the Israelite workmen laid their bricks with headers and 

 stretchers, in the manner we should now technically de- 

 scribe as the "Old English Bond," though henceforth it 

 might be more correct to designate it as the " Old 

 Egyptian Bond." 



Of the succeeding trouvailles of the Society, space 

 forbids us to make more than passing mention. The 

 valuable papyri, bronzes and sculptures found by Mr. 

 Petrie at Tanis-Zoan in 1884; the lost Greek city of 

 Naukratis, with its hoards of archaic pottery and terra- 

 cottas, which the same untiring excavator brought to light 

 in 1885 ; his discovery in 1886 of "Pharaoh's house at 

 Tahpanhes," described by the prophet Jeremiah, where 

 was uncovered the very entry to the Palace, where the 

 prophet delivered his famous prophecy of warning to the 

 " men of Judah " ; the excavation of an ancient Jewish 

 necropolis at Tel-el-Yahoudeh in 1887, by M. Naville; and, 

 finally the discovery of Tel Basta, and of its temple of red 

 granite, which Herodotus mentions as the most beautiful 

 in all Egypt — all these (with the exception of Tel Basta,. 

 the account of which is not yet published) are fully de- 

 scribed and illustrated.in the works issued by the Society, 

 and specimens of some of the most valuable objects found 

 are to be seen in the British Museum. 



How much more may be brought to England to enrich 

 our national collections, will depend upon the liberality 

 with which the public supports the Egypt Exploration 

 Fund in its great and costly undertakings. 



STEAM-HEATING OF RAILWAY 

 CARRIAGES. 



'X'HE heating of cars by steam has at last met with a 

 genuine experience with the worst conditions that 

 it can expect to ever be called to meet — viz., the bitter 

 cold and blockading snow of a veritable north-western 

 blizzard. From the 12th to the 17th of last month a 

 steam-heated train on the Chicago and North-Western 

 Railway struggled with snow and cold on a special run 

 from Chicago to Des Moines, Iowa, 363 miles, and return. 

 Seventeen hours of this time were spent in a snow-drift. 

 During the trip the temperature of the outside air ranged 

 down to 2 9 degrees below zero. The cars were kept comfort- 

 ablethroughallthis. When the enginewas detached to seek 

 release from the snow-drift, the cars were kept warm 

 with the Baker heaters. Steam-heating is shown in this 

 experiment to be here to stay, despite the cavil of un- 

 believers, for it has successfully carried a train through 

 conditions that reach the maximum of severity in our 

 latitudes. But it has also been shown that we are as 

 yet only upon the threshold of the science of steam- 

 heating, for these severe conditions have brought out 

 defects that must be removed before ordinary train 

 hands can be trusted to carry it into a blizzard. We 

 confidently expect that these defects will be remedied. — 

 Railway Revieiv. 



