“But what are we to think when the antiquary, grubbing in the dust and silt of five thousand years ago to discover some traces of infant effort—­some rude specimens of the ages of Magog and Mizraim, in which we may admire the germ that has since developed into a wonderful art—­breaks his shins against an article so perfect that it equals if it does not excel the supreme stretch of modern ability?  How shall we support the theory if it come to our knowledge that, before Noah was cold in his grave, his descendants were adepts in construction and in the fine arts, and that their achievements were for magnitude such as, if we possess the requisite skill, we never attempt to emulate? . . .

“As we have not yet discovered any trace of the rude, savage Egypt, but have seen her in her very earliest manifestations already skilful, erudite, and strong, it is impossible to determine the order of her inventions.  Light may yet be thrown upon her rise and progress, but our deepest researches have hitherto shown her to us as only the mother of a most accomplished race.  How they came by their knowledge is matter for speculation; that they possessed it is matter of fact.  We never find them without the ability to organize labor, or shrinking from the very boldest efforts in digging canals and irrigating, in quarrying rock, in building, and in sculpture.”

The explanation is simple:  the waters of the Atlantic now flow over the country where all this magnificence and power were developed by slow stages from the rude beginnings of barbarism.

And how mighty must have been the parent nation of which this Egypt was a colony!

Egypt was the magnificent, the golden bridge, ten thousand years long, glorious with temples and pyramids, illuminated and illustrated by the most complete and continuous records of human history, along which the civilization of Atlantis, in a great procession of kings and priests, philosophers and astronomers, artists and artisans, streamed forward to Greece, to Rome, to Europe, to America.  As far back in the ages as the eye can penetrate, even where the perspective dwindles almost to a point, we can still see the swarming multitudes, possessed of all the arts of the highest civilization, pressing forward from out that other and greater empire of which even this wonderworking Nile-land is but a faint and imperfect copy.

Look at the record of Egyptian greatness as preserved in her works:  The pyramids, still in their ruins, are the marvel of mankind.  The river Nile was diverted from its course by monstrous embankments to make a place for the city of Memphis.  The artificial lake of Moeris was created as a reservoir for the waters of the Nile:  it was four hundred and fifty miles in circumference and three hundred and fifty feet deep, with subterranean channels, flood-gates, locks, and dams, by which the wilderness was redeemed from sterility.  Look at the magnificent mason-work of this ancient people!  Mr. Kenrick, speaking