ADVANCED

READING BOOK.

THE SCIENCES IN ANCIENT EGYPT.

IN considering the state of agriculture in Egypt, we do not confine its importance to the direct and tangible benefits it annually conferred upon the people, by the improved condition of the productions of the soil; the influence it had on the manners and scientific acquirements of the people is no less obvious, and worthy our contemplation; and to the peculiar nature of the Nile, and the effects of its inundation, has been reasonably attributed the early advancement of the Egyptians in geometry and mensuration.

It is reasonable to suppose that as the inundation subsided, much litigation sometimes occurred between neighbors respecting the limits of their unenclosed fields; and the fall of a portion of the bank, carried away by the stream during the rise of the Nile, frequently made great alterations in the extent of land near the river side; we therefore readily perceive the necessity of determining the quantity which belonged to each individual, whether to settle disputes with a neighbor, or to ascertain the tax due to government. But it is difficult to fix the period when the science of mensuration commenced; if we have ample proofs of its being known in the time of Joseph, this does not carry us far back into the ancient history of Egypt; and there is evidence of geometry and mathematics having already made the same progress at the earliest period

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THE SCIENCES IN ANCIENT EGYPT.

of which any monuments remain, as in the later era of the
Patriarch, or of the Great Remeses.

Besides the mere measurement of superficial areas, it was of
paramount importance to agriculture, and to the interests of
the peasant, to distribute the benefits of the inundation in due
proportion to each individual, that the lands which were low.
might not enjoy the exclusive advantages of the fertilising
water, by constantly draining it from those of a higher level.
For this purpose, the necessity of ascertaining the various eleva-
tions of the country, and of constructing accurately levelled
canals and dykes, obviously occurred to them; and if it be true,
that Menes, their first king, turned the course of the Nile into
a new channel he had made for it, we have a proof of their
having, long before his time, arrived at considerable knowledge
in this branch of science, since so great an undertaking could
only have been the result of long experience.

These dykes were succeeded or accompanied by the invention.
of sluices, and all the mechanism appertaining to them; the regu-
lation of the supply of water admitted into plains of various levels,
the report of the exact quantity of land irrigated, the depth of
the water and the time it continued upon the surface, which
determined the proportionate payment of the taxes, required
much scientific skill; and the prices of provisions for the ensu-
ing year were already ascertained by the unerring prognostics of
the existing inundations. This naturally led to minute observa-
tions respecting the increase of the Nile during the inundation;
Nilometers, for measuring its gradual rise or fall, were con-
structed in various parts of Egypt, and particular persons were
appointed to observe each daily change, and to proclaim the
favorable or unfavorable state of this important phenomenon.
On these reports depended the time chosen for opening the
canals, whose mouths were closed until the river rose to a fixed
height, upon which occasion grand festivities were proclaimed
throughout the country, in order that every person might show
his sense of the great benefit vouchsafed by the Gods to the
land of Egypt. The introduction of the waters of the Nile
into the interior, by means of these canals, was allegorically
construed into the union of Osiris and Isis; the instant of cut-
ting away the dam of earth, which separated the bed of the
canal from the Nile, was looked forward to with the utmost
anxiety; and it is reasonable to suppose that many omens were

consulted in order to ascertain the auspicious moment for this important ceremony.

Superstition added greatly to the zeal of a credulous people. The Deity, or presiding Genius, of the river was propitiated by suitable oblations, both during the inundation, and about the period when it was expected; and Seneca tells us, that on a particular fête the priests threw presents, and offerings of gold into the river near Phila, at a place called the Veins of the Nile, where they first perceived the rise of the inundation. Indeed, we may reasonably suppose that the grand and wonderful spectacle of the inundation excited in them feelings of the deepest awe for the divine power, to which they were indebted for so great a blessing: and a plentiful supply of water was supposed to be the result of the favor of the Gods, as a deficiency was attributed to their displeasure, punishing the sins of an offending people.

On the inundation depended all the hopes of the peasant; it affected the revenue of the government, both by its influence on the scale of taxation, and by the greater or less profits on the exportation of grain and other produce; and it involved the comfort of all classes. For in Upper Egypt no rain fell to irrigate the land; it was a country, as ancient writers state, which did not look for showers to advance its crops; and if, as Proclus says, these fell in Lower Egypt, they were confined to that district, and heavy rain was a prodigy in the Thebaid. There is, however, evidence that heavy rain did occasionally fall in the vicinity of Thebes, from the appearance of the deep ravines worn by water in the hills, about the tombs of the Kings, though probably, as now, after intervals of fifteen or twenty years; and it may be said from modern experience, that slight showers fall there about five or six times a year, in Lower Egypt much more frequently, and at Alexandria almost as often as in the South of Europe.

The result of a favorable inundation was not confined to tangible benefits; it had the greatest effect on the mind of every Egyptian by long anticipation; the happiness arising from it, as the regrets on the appearance of a scanty supply of water, being far more sensibly felt than in countries which depend on rain for their harvest, where future prospects not being so soon foreseen, hope continues longer; the Egyptian, on the other hand, being able to form a just estimate of his crops even

HYMN TO THE SEA.

before the seed is sown, or the land prepared for its reception. Other remarkable effects may likewise be partially attributed to the interest excited by the expectation of the rising Nile; and it is probable that the accurate observations required for fixing the seasons, and the period of the annual return of the inundation, which was found to coincide with the heliacal rising of Sothis, or the Dog-star, contributed greatly to the early study of astronomy in the valley of the Nile. The precise time when these and other calculations were first made by the Egyptians, it is impossible now to determine; but from the height of the inundation being already recorded in the reign of Moris, we may infer that constant observations had been made, and Nilometers constructed, even before that early period; and astronomy, geometry, and other sciences are said to have been known in Egypt in the time of the hierarchy which preceded the accession of their first king, Menes. -WILKINSON.

HYMN TO THE SEA.

WHO shall declare the secret of thy birth,
Thou old companion of the circling earth?
And having marked with keen poetic sight
Ere beast or happy bird

Through the vast silence stirred,

Roll back the folded darkness of the primal night?

Corruption like, thou teemedst in the graves
Of mouldering systems, with dark weltering waves
Troubling the peace of the first mother's womb;
Whose ancient awful form,
With inly tossing storm,

Unquiet heavings kept—a birth-place and a tomb.

Till the life-giving Spirit moved above

The face of the waters, with creative love

Warming the hidden seeds of infant light ;

What time the mighty Word

Through thine abyss was heard,

And swam from out thy deeps the young day heavenly bright.

Sunlight and moonlight minister to thee ;

O'er the broad circle of the shoreless sea

Heaven's two great lights for ever set and rise;

While the round vault above,

In vast and silent love,

Is gazing down upon thee with his hundred eyes.

All night thou utterest forth thy solemn moan,
Counting thy weary minutes all alone;

Then in the morning thou dost calmly lie,
Deep blue ere yet the sun

His day-work hath begun,

Under the opening windows of the golden sky.

The spirit of the mountain looks on thee
Over an hundred hills; quaint shadows flee
Across thy marbled mirror: brooding lie
Storm-mists of infant cloud,

With a sight-baffling shroud

Mantling the grey-blue islands in the western sky.

Sometimes thou liftest up thine hands on high
Into the tempest-cloud that blurs the sky,
Helling rough dalliance with the fitful blast,
Whose stiff breath, whistling shrill,

Pierces with deadly chill

The wet crew feebly clinging to their shattered mast.

Foam-white along the border of the shore
Thine onward-leaping billows plunge and roar ;
While o'er the pebbly ridges slowly glide
Cloaked figures, dim and grey,

Through the thick mist of spray,

Watching for some struck vessel in the boiling tide.

Daughter and darling of remotest eld

Time's childhood and Time's age thou hast beheld;
His arm is feeble and his eye is dim-

He tells old tales again,

He wearies of long pain ;

Thou art as at the first thou journeyedst not with him.

-ALFORD.

NINEVEH.

WE descend into the principal trench, by a flight of steps rudely cut into the earth, near the western face of the mound; and, at a depth of about twenty feet, we suddenly find curselves between a pair of colossal lions, winged and humanheaded, forming a portal. Before these wonderful forms, Ezekiel, Jonah, and others of the prophets stood, and Sennacherib bowed; even the patriarch Abraham himself may possibly have bowed.

Leaving behind us a small chamber, in which the sculptures