few years ago the French transported an obelisk from Luxor, and raised it in Paris; and though the material is granite, and though for many centuries it had stood uninjured in its original position, yet it has already been found necessary to cover it with a liquid preparation of caoutchouc, to protect it from the corrosive effects of the atmosphere in Paris.

There are temples in Egypt which have been roofless for two thousand years. Their walls are covered with paintings. The colours are still distinctly perceptible, and, in many instances, retain all their original freshness. It is not strange, then, that the sculptured stone should remain, often with the polish undimmed that it received from the hands of the workmen many hundreds of years ago. Such is at this moment the case with fragments of temples, the demolition of which falls within the historic period, as it is known they were destroyed by Cambyses five hundred years before the Christian era. The same freshness, the same strange union of seeming youth with acknowledged age, is also to be seen in some of the cavern temples and tombs excavated in the sides of the mountains. At Aboo-Simbul, in Nubia, the white of the walls is unstained by any touch of Time's finger; the outlines of the figures never could have been sharper, the colours of the paintings never more vivid, than they are now. Indeed, it is said, that when one comes to that part where the tracings and outlines show that this great work was never finished, he is almost cheated into the illusion that it is still in progress, and that the workmen have but temporarily suspended their labours, so fresh is the appearance of the por tion that is completed. But for the peculiarities of climate, we should probably, at this day, have few or no memorials of Egypt to which we could turn for the study of her history (and progress in. the arts of civilized and social life. For the last sixteen hundred years these venerable and interesting ruins have been utterly neglected by the inhabitants. No Egyptian hand has been extended to prevent the wantonness of destruction or stay the ravages of dilapidation. The marvel is, that anything remains to be destroyed. Egypt has passed through strange vicissitudes since the erection of the pyramids of Ghizeh. An ancient monarchy has crumbled into ruins, repeated conquests have placed over her many foreign masters, civil wars have thinned her population, few of her ancient stock are left. In the circumstances that must have attended national calamities like these, it had not been strange had almost every architectural or pictorial vestige of the past been lost to the world for ever. Is it

superstitious to suppose that there may have been a Providence in their preservation? Is it a presumptuous interpretation of the purpose of God in his providence to observe, that an inquiring, searching spirit, demanding the proof of everything, predominates in the minds of men at the present day; and from thence to infer the importance of this opening of a new and hitherto unexplored field of inquiry, and the value of a powerful array of unanswerable evidence in favour of the Scriptures, which doubtless will be obtained from it? May it not be, that the real and true philosophy of this age will be the instrument in God's hands wherewith he will oppose its infidelity?

The remains of former grandeur in this most interesting country consist chiefly of edifices connected with religious ceremonies and of places for civil assemblies. A few words of explanation on these may prove useful. There was scarce a city of note in Egypt which had not its temple, or, as it has been well termed by some, palacetemple-serving at once for the residence of the monarch and for the place consecrated to the rites of religion, or appropriated to important civil assemblies. On these ruins are found sculptured reliefs, which are generally coloured, and have some reference to the false god of Egyptian mythology in whose honour they were erected.

This

pagan divinity is commonly represented as receiving the homage of the king by whom the edifice was founded. This representation was usually delineated on the propyla, or two truncated pyramids, which stood one on either side of the grand entrance, and served, in the translation of its reliefs and hieroglyphics, as a sort of title-page to what was within. An example is afforded in the view of Luxor. In the interior, by means both of sculpture and of large paintings on the walls, the battles, sieges, marches, triumphs, &c., of the king were delineated. The spoils obtained by the victor often furnished, as it is supposed, a part at least of the means employed in the erection of the edifice. The halls in the interior are sometimes very large, as at Thebes, for instance, where there are some six hundred feet in length, and half that distance in breadth, supported by massive columns twelve feet in diameter, and sixty-six feet high, placed at regular intervals throughout the area of the apartment. The walls, pillars, &c., are covered with colossal sculptures of deities, kings, priests, religious processions, &c., while on the walls similar scenes are delineated in lively paintings.

In the representations of triumphs, the costume and peculiarities of colour and feature among the captives of different nations are

carefully preserved, and often render essential aid in deciphering the sculptured history of the event commemorated. In almost all the representations of conquests, the king is represented as marching in triumph to the temple, and dragging long lines of captives, fastened by the neck, and with limbs distorted by being bound in the most painful positions. These reliefs are always accompanied by hieroglyphic inscriptions explanatory of the scene, and are indispensable in attaining to a correct understanding of the representation; the neglect of them has led to some strange errors. The sculptured representations of kings invariably have their names written over them, and commonly inscribed within an oval, or cartouche. The names of the foreigners with whom they were at war, of towns they were besieging, as well as of the captives they are leading, are usually written in the hieroglyphics. Sometimes the date of the erection of the edifice, and of the king by whom it was built, may be read. These dates are expressed by such a month in such a year of the monarch's reign.

The tombs of Egypt furnish, also, not only abundant evidence of her former grandeur, but also very valuable subjects of study to the antiquarian. In Upper Egypt, rocky mountains form the western boundary of the valley of the Nile. In these, immense caverns were cut, with incredible labour, as receptacles for the dead. In Lower Egypt, where no mountains exist, deep pits were dug, and lined with brick; or, where rock existed, they were dug into the rock, as places of interment. Nothing presents itself, in the study of the manners and customs of ancient Egypt, as developed in her existing remains, more striking than the respect shown to the dead. Diodorus has remarked, that the Egyptians spent more upon their tombs than they did upon their houses. Some of the cemeteries are filled with the remains of the common people. These are not always in coffins, but, enveloped in the folds of the linen in which they were swathed, they are piled in the mummy pits with great regularity. They were all embalmed, and the number is immense. Again, there are the family vaults of the wealthy, the priesthood, the military, &c. These are sometimes very extensive, consisting of various rooms connected by galleries, with the walls of the apartments covered with paintings. The scenes delineated most commonly have reference to the operations of ordinary life. The deceased is represented with his family around him. Sometimes they are at the banquet, sometimes listening to music, or amusing themselves with the dance. Again, he is seen in the country, hunting, fowling, or fishing; next, he is super

intending agricultural labours. In short, almost every description of mechanical trade is depicted in the tombs: all are scenes of | activity, and it has been well said, that "everything in them savours of life, but the corpse." The predominant wish seems to have been, to banish from them all that could suggest the idea of death; and the only explanation that offers itself of this singular custom is, that

the proprietor of the tomb employed himself, while living, in the preparation for his posterity of what may be called a pictorial autobiography. But the aristocratic dead of these costly resting-places, unlike the poor, whose swathed mummies are packed in tiers, sleep in their respective sarcophagi of granite, basalt, or alabaster, sculptured over with figures and inscriptions, which, it is charitable to suppose, are at least as truthful as the majority of modern epitaphs. These stone coffins, it was doubtless supposed by their Occupants, would protect their bodies after death from an unhallowed disinterment; but the very care taken to secure their remains from violation has often led to the desecration against

an

which they would guard. The linen bandage around the common mummy of the pits offered nothing to the decipherer; while the inscriptions on the sarcophagus afforded to the zealous antiquarian opportunity not to be neglected of adding characters to his hieroglyphic alphabet, or words to his Egyptian vocabulary. Many of the cabinets of Europe can show fragments of sarcophagi; few take the trouble to preserve many specimens of the common mummy of the pit. Sometimes these wealthy dead were coffined in a wooden case, or double case, of sycamore, covered with gilding and painting.

These, as they offered the same temptation as the inscribed sarcophagus, have often shared the same fate. But the tombs contain, beside the dead, other articles, the removal of which involves no charge of desecration. With the dead it was usual to deposit, in the tombs, articles of luxury on which they had set a value when living; and, in the case of the humble artizan, the tools or utensils which he used in life were laid with him when he rested from his toil. Hence various objects of interest have been found in the tombs. Elegant vases of granite, alabaster, metal, and earth, are abundant in the various museums of Europe. The tools of the mason and carpenter, articles of household furniture, models of boats and houses, the pallets used by the sacred scribes, with their cakes of ink and reed pens or brushes, with various other articles, are by no means uncommon. Books written on rolls of the papyrus (made from the inner coat of a species of reed once abundant on the canals and lakes of Egypt, though now rarely to be met with) are also found, sometimes inclosed in the swathings of the mummy, sometimes in hollow cases of wood or in earthen jars.

It has thus happened, that though we have no continuous written history of ancient Egypt, yet, from a combination of unusual circumstances, we actually know more of the details of every-day life among its ancient people, than we do of such particulars in any other nation of antiquity.

SIMPLE LESSONS ON HEAT.-No. II.

BY THE REV. T. MILLS.

HEAT makes things larger. It swells their particles, and drives them farther from each other. Thus bodies increase in bulk. This explains and accounts for a great many things.

A blown bladder on a cold day seems to be only half full, for the cold condenses the air; but on a hot day, and in sunshine, it swells and is quite full of air, for the same quantity is expanded to twice the bulk; and were the bladder placed near a large fire or in an oven, it would burst with a loud noise. If you immerse a cold bottle, upside down, in hot water, the air, being expanded, comes bubbling out, for the bottle will not now contain it all. But when the water is cold, the air becomes cold; the air fills less space, and water partly fills the bottle.

Heat causes nuts and beans to burst, by expanding the air within them; and it causes some stones to fly out of the fire, by the air that is