such animal as might be considered a symbol of strength and courage.  The whole history of our species bears testimony to that tendency of the human mind, when not restrained and guided by better knowledge, to pourtray in some visible form its conceptions of Deity.  However far many superior minds of the heathen world might advance, in deducing from the contemplation of all around them more correct views of the goodness and wisdom of an all-ruling power, these were ideas far too refined for the mass, who felt the want of something more apparent to the senses—­something on which the mind could repose from vain imaginings and real fears.  Hence the Deity was invested with various forms of familiar objects, under which he was venerated as a protector and friend, or feared as an avenging and angry power.  Under the form of a ram, and the name of Ammon, we find a deity worshipped along the banks of the Nile, from the temple of the ancient Meroe to the sand-girt oasis of Siwah.  The mild and benignant expression of the sacred ram would indicate the diffusion of tranquillity and peace, nor would the essential value of the symbol be changed by finding the head of the ram placed on human shoulders, or attached to the body of a lion.  In the first case it would, in accordance with the Egyptian tradition of gods having assumed the forms of animals, commemorate, as in the Hindoo mythology, an incarnation of the superior power; and in the second, the union of strength and courage with mildness and the arts of peace.  The crio-sphinx, then, belongs to the Ammonian mythology, and is a distinct symbol from the andro-sphinx and female sphinx, which, probably, are connected with the worship of Osiris and Isis.”  Something of the effect may be comprehended from the two large red granite lions which mark the southern boundary of the saloon (1-34.) They are of the time of the third Amenophis, and were discovered at Mount Barkal by Lord Prudhoe, in 1829.  As specimens of the mechanical skill of ancient Egyptian sculptors, they are worth particular remark.  Here there is little of that angular stiffness characteristic of the statues the visitor has already examined.  And now, making one more progress through the saloon, the visitor may rapidly notice the varieties of strange animal forms—­all of which, in ancient Egypt, had their religious meaning.  They were, at all events, symbols of divine instincts, and for this reason a deep interest rises in the modern mind in the contemplation of their proportions and expression.  The figure numbered 7 is a colossal head of a ram, emblematic of Amen-ra; that numbered 8, is Hapi, the god of the Nile of the period of the 22nd dynasty, with allegorical waterfowl and plants hanging from the altar he is holding; two strange figures of gryphons, or hawk-headed sphinxes, found by Belzoni in the great temple of Ibsamboul (11-13), and emblematic or Munt-ra, will next engage the visitor’s attention; and from these specimens the visitor should turn to a black granite fragment