CONNECTION BETWEEN ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY. 645 



the opinion of the best informed anthropologists, among whom the French savants 

 stand, I think deservedly, in the front rank. But this opinion, I think, is only 

 considered demonstrated beyond doubt as far as Europe is concerned. The an- 

 tiquities of Asia and of the valley of the Nile have not been studied sufficiently to 

 warrant conclusions and statements so positive concerning pre-historic man in 

 those regions. The conditions in the latter country seem to have been so different 

 as to cause the development of a civilization unlike anything found in Europe. 

 We meet, in the valley of the Nile and on the Assyrian plains, long before the 

 dawn of history, the remains of a civilization which astonishes us. This must be 

 accounted for partly by the wonderful fertility of the soil. Take Egypt, for ex- 

 ample. Here was a strip of territory shaped — as far as proportions of length and 

 breadth go — like one of her obelisks, nine hundred miles long by ten miles in 

 width, with a soil like that of our American bottoms, of exhaustless richness, and 

 watered by the perennial flow of the Nile. When the first migrations took place 

 from the central home in Asia, the tribe, or tribes, which first possesed this beau- 

 tiful valley found nature producing spontaneously, almost, the needed fruits of 

 the soil, and inviting them to tempt her bounty still further. The taste and habit 

 for agriculture were speedily developed to a degree which required ages to ac- 

 complish in more sterile lands, and where men could derive their supplies more 

 largely from the chase. 



When Italy was known only as the home of a barbarous, savage people, and 

 what was afterward known as Greece was inhabited. by scattered families and in- 

 significant tribes, known as Dorians, Cohans, and the like, Egypt stood forth 

 alone in the splendors of her achievements in learning, science and the mechanic 

 arts. Even then education was the heritage of the masses. In the granite 

 quarries are pictures of men with tablets keeping account of the labors of the 

 workmen. The French, in their explorations, discovered a tomb dating 1700 

 years before Christ, and inscribed to "To the Chief of Books," showing that at 

 that remote period Egypt had her libraries and paid high homage to literature and 

 her learned men. 



When Germanicus Caesar visited Egypt and gazed with wonder on her im- 

 posing monuments, he asked the priests to read the inscriptions with which they 

 were covered. They replied: "These record the greatness of our nation in 

 former times, when seven hundred thousand men bore arms and carried our con- 

 quests to distant lands," etc. And among the lists of the ancient rulers of those 

 times, they read the name of a queen — Scemiophra. Facts like this s,peak vol- 

 umes for the glory of Egyptian civilization, and tell unmistakably how woman 

 was respected and adored in those early days of the world's history. Here 

 were mighty cities, and thousands of canals connecting with the Nile, by which 

 artificial lakes and reservoirs beneath the cities were supplied with water for irri- 

 gating the land and supplies in times of drouth. When we read of the long voy- 

 ages of her mariners, and their cedar ships 500 feet long, we are filled with 

 astonishment. 



