purpose they were obliged to ascertain the various elevations of the country, and to construct accurately levelled canals and dykes; 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 regulation 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 ensuing year were already ascertained by the unerring prognostics of the existing inundation. Hence they were led to make minute observations respecting the increase of the Nile during that season: Nilometers, for measuring its gradual rise or fall, were constructed in various parts of Egypt, and particular persons were appointed to observe each daily change, and to proclaim the favourable or unfavourable 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 cutting away the dam of earth which separated the bed of the canal from the Nile was looked forward to with the utmost anxiety; and 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 Philæ, at a place called the Veins of the Nile, where they first perceived the rise of the inundation. It was reasonable that the grand and wonderful spectacle of the inundation should excite 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 favour 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 comforts of all classes. For in Upper Egypt no rain fell to irrigate the land; it was a country which did not look for showers to advance its crops; and if "these fell in Lower Egypt, they were confined to that district, and heavy rain was a prodigy in the Thebaïd." But though, speaking generally, it may be said not to rain there, heavy storms did occasionally fall in the vicinity of Thebes, as is proved by the appearance of the deep ravines worn by water in the hills, about the tombs of the Kings, probably, as now, after intervals of fifteen or twenty years; and modern experience shows that slight showers fall at Thebes, 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 favourable 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 are not so soon foreseen. The Egyptian, on the other hand, was able to form a just estimate of his crops even before sowing the seed, or preparing the land for its reception.

Other remarkable effects may likewise be partially attributed

to the interest excited by the expectation of the rising Nile; and the accurate observations required for fixing the seasons, and the period of the annual return of the inundation, 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 the kings of the 12th dynasty, 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.

We cannot, however, from the authority of Diodorus and Clemens of Alexandria, venture to assert that the books of Hermes which contained the science and philosophy of Egypt, all date before the reign of Menes; the original work, by whomsoever it was composed, was probably very limited and imperfect; and the famous books of Hermes were not all written at the same period; like the Jewish collection of poems received under the name of David's Psalms, some of which date after the Babylonish captivity. Nor was Thoth, Hermes, or Mercury, a real personage, but (as I have before stated) a deified form of the divine intellect, which being imparted to man had enabled him to produce this effort of genius; and the only argument in favour of the high antiquity of any portion of this work is the tradition of the people, supported by the positive proof of the great mathematical skill of the Egyptians in the time of Menes, by the change he made in the course of the Nile. It may also be inferred from their advancement in the arts and sciences at this early period, that many ages of civilization had preceded the accession of their first monarch.

At all events, we may conclude that to agriculture and the peculiar nature of the river, the accurate method adopted by the Egyptians in the regulation of their year is to be attributed; that by the return of the seasons, so decidedly marked in Egypt, they were taught to correct those inaccuracies, to which an approxi

mate calculation was at first subject; and that thus the calendar, which could not long be suffered to depend on the vague length of a solar revolution, was necessarily brought round to a fixed period.

It is highly probable that the Egyptians, in their infancy as a nation, divided their year into twelve lunar months; the twentyeight years of Osiris's reign being derived, as Plutarch says, from the number of days the moon takes to perform her course round the earth; and it is worthy of remark that the hieroglyphic signifying "month" was represented by the crescent of the moon, as is abundantly proved from the sculptures and the authority of Horapollo. From this we also derive another very important conclusion; that the use of hieroglyphics was of a far more remote date than is generally supposed, since they existed previous to the adoption of solar months.

The substitution of solar for lunar months was the earliest change in the Egyptian year. It was then made to consist of twelve months of thirty days each, making a total of 360 days: but as it was soon discovered that the seasons were disturbed, and no longer corresponded to the same months, five additional days were introduced at the end of the last month, Mesoré, in order to remedy the previous defect in the calendar, and to insure the returns of the seasons to fixed periods.

The twelve months were Thoth, Paopi, Athor, Choeak, Tobi, Mechir, Phamenoth, Pharmuthi, Pachons, Paoni, Epep, Mesoré: and the year being divided into three seasons, each period comprised four of these months. That containing the first four was styled the season of the "plants;" the next perhaps of the "manifestation," or 66 appearance, of the inundation ;" and the last season of the "tanks of water," which had been laid up when the Nile subsided. The 1st of Thoth, in the time of Julius Cæsar, fell on the 29th of August; and Mesoré, the last month, began on the 25th of July; as may be seen in the accompanying woodcut, where I have introduced the modern names given them by the Copts, who still use them in preference to the lunar months of the Arabs; and, indeed, the Arabs themselves are frequently guided by the Coptic months in matters relating to agriculture, particularly in Upper Egypt.

A people who gave any attention to subjects so important to their agricultural pursuits, could not long remain ignorant of the deficiency which even the intercalation of the five days left in the adjustment of the calendar; and though it required a period of 1461 years for the seasons to recede through all the twelve months, and to prove by the deficiency of a whole year the imperfection of this system, yet it would be obvious to them, in the lapse of a very few years, that a perceptible alteration had taken place in the relative position of the seasons; and the most careless observation would show, that in 120 years, having lost a whole month, or thirty days, the rise of the Nile, the time of sowing and reaping, and all the periodical occupations of the