THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3097, 21 May 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS.

A BOOK lias lately been published in j London, the object of which is to set forth, ; us f « as is possible, that " Wisdom of the Egyptians" into which Mosos was indoctrinated. It appears the Egyptians were astronomers from a very early date, though much of their astronomy, and of other learning, was derived from tnat equally remarkable p»oplo the Chaldeans. In mathematics the old Nile dwellers had progressed so far that one Ahmes, tho " Moon Born," compiled a papyius treatise on arithmetic. But their medical knowledge must have been purely ompirical, as the dissection of the human body was strictly prohibited. Even their boasted system of embalming -was much inferior to the modern methods, for it was little more than a costly, long, and elaborate kind of salting. In engineerim? they wore undoubtedly far ahead of races which succeeded them. The useless pyramids and obelisks are proof enough of this, though the canals and reservoirs constructed by some of the Pharoahs were, if not so striking, achievements quite comparable with tho most splendid w«rks of modern times—though 110 doubt accomplished with a recklessness of man's misery and human life which makes one recoil at the sight of what little the barbarism of a host of conquerors have left of their ancient utilisations of tho rivor of E<*ypt. In chemistry they had made some advances. Their perfumes were famous, and the Nilometer alone, apart from the mechanical appliances to raise the huge stones of the Pyramids, is evidence that the inventors of the hieroglyphics knew somsthing of physics. In short, it is.clear that the world in ancient times was a groat deal wiser than the strong men who lived after Agamotmion are "always inclined to admit. The ancieDtknew much more than their tombs and refuse heaps have preserved tho records of. Their historians neglected to write down descriptions of many arts practised thousands of years ago, but which perished in the wreck of empires and the turmoil of civil war and barbarism. The weakness of the moderns is that they bcliove nobody bofore them knew anything; the bane of the Middle Ages was that the commentators of those times imagined that tho ancients were all wise. Yet the claspicsi upon whim such endless lucubrations have been written were but the echoes of a still older lore,