My Library

feet high? “ ‘It would strain the treasury of a modern state to pay the expense attendant upon the erection of half-a-dozen such—as was proved here in Paris in the case of the Obelisk of Luxor, the smallest of two that stood before the Temple of Thebes, and which cost France over two million dollars to place where it now stands. Without steam power and railways, how could such immense masses of stone have been transported over and through vast plains of shifting, burning sands, especially for such immense distances as it is certain they were brought? A single further remark on chronology, and I have done. It has been established among the learned, that it takes not less than a period of ten thousand years for a language to be perfected, and then die out, to give place to an improved but entirely different one. Now, observe: Champollion declares that he, through the assistance of modern Egyptian, was able to master ancient Egyptian. This furnished a key to certain hieroglyphs; these latter proved instrumental toward simplifying a series of three more. He concludes that he has sufficient evidence to establish the fact, that several successive languages had been spoken in the two Egypts (Upper and Lower). “ ‘But let us return to the original topic of conversation. How is it that you expect a mere dream will aid you in researches of a nature so