peasant, no longer coincided with the same month. They therefore added a quarter day to remedy the defect, making every fourth year to consist of 366 days; which, though still subject to a slight error, was a sufficiently accurate approximation; and the length of each year was computed from one heliacal rising of the Dog-star to another. It was therefore called the “Sothic year;" and Censorinus says "it was termed by the Greeks "Kurikov,' by the Latins 'canicularem,' because its commencement is taken from the rising of the Dog-star on the first day of the month, called by the Egyptians Thoth." But that day was not made the beginning of the year because Sothis rose heliacally upon it; the Sothic period was fixed when it coincided with it; and the beginning of the year, or the first of Thoth, was, perhaps, originally at a very different season; though they even pretended in later times that the commencement of the Sothic period corresponded with the beginning of the world. Some have supposed that the name Thoth was formerly applied to the first day alone, and not to the month itself.

That the five days, called of the Epact, were added at a most remote period, may readily be credited; and so convinced were the Egyptians of this, that they referred it to the fabulous times of their history, wrapping it up in the guise of allegory; and it is highly probable that the intercalation of the quarter day, or one day in four years, was also of very early date. The first direct notice of the five days is on a box at Turin of the time of Amunoph III.; but M. de Rougé has shown they were used in the 12th dynasty, and that the fête of Sothis was celebrated at the same period.

The Sothic period, as is well known, was fixed in the year 1322 before our era, when the Egyptians had ascertained by observation that 1460 Sothic were equal to 1461 solar years, the seasons having in that time passed through every part of the year, and returned again to the same point. They thus established a standard for adjusting their calendar, under the name of the Sothic period; and though for ordinary purposes, as the dates of their kings and other events, they continued to

use the vague year of 365 days, every calculation could thus be corrected, by comparing the time of this last with that of the Sothic or sidereal year. When the idea first occurred to them is unknown; but the oath imposed on the Egyptian Kings" that they would not intercalate any month or day, but that the sacred year of 365 days should remain as instituted in ancient times," evidently had for its object the employment of both the years for a counter-reckoning in present and past records; and as the Sothic period was fixed in 1322 B.C. from observations, it is evident that these must have been continued during the time that elapsed up to that year, which would throw back the beginning of their observations to a very remote age. The king in whose reign the Sothic period was fixed is said to be Menophres; but the name he is known by on the monuments has not yet been ascertained, though he seems to have lived about the beginning of the 19th dynasty.

The astronomical subjects and various data to be derived from the monuments, will doubtless some day clear up most essential points relating to Egyptian Chronology; and though we must sometimes depend upon conjecture, it is satisfactory, considering the general uncertainty of history, to have arrived at a fair approximation in Egyptian dates. Those I have ventured to assign to the Pharaohs only pretend to a similar approximation; but the rising of Sothis in the reign of Thothmes III., now calculated by the learned M. Biot to correspond to between 1464 and 1424 B.C., shows that my placing his reign from 1495 to 1456 B.C. only differed from his real date by about 30 years.

The pursuits of agriculture did not prevent the Egyptians from arriving at a remarkable pre-eminence as a manufacturing nation; and that they should successfully unite the advantages of an agricultural and a manufacturing country is not surprising, when we consider that in those early times the competition of other manufacturing countries did not interfere with their market; and though Tyre and Sidon excelled in various manufactures, many branches of industry brought exclusive advantages to the Egyptian workman. Even in the flourishing days of the Phoeni

cians, Egypt exported linen to other countries, and she probably enjoyed at all times an entire monopoly in this, and every article she manufactured, with the caravans of the interior of Africa.

square

The Egyptian land measure was the aroura (or arura), a square of 100 cubits, covering an area of 10,000 cubits, and like our acre solely employed for measuring land. It contained 29,184 feet English, (the cubit being full 20 inches,) and was little more than of an English acre. The other measures of Egypt were the schoene, equal to 60 stades in length, which served like the stade of Greece, the parasang of Persia, and the more modern mile, for measuring distance; the cubit, which Herodotus says was equal to that of Samos; and the palm and digit, which were parts of the cubit. Though the stade is often used by Greek writers in giving measurements in Egypt, it was not an Egyptian measure; and generally speaking it was equal to 600 Greek feet. They also mention the plethrum in giving the length of some buildings, as the Pyramids; but this was properly a Greek square measure, containing 10,000 square feet. When used as a measure of length it was estimated at 100 feet; though, if Herodotus's measurement of the Great Pyramid be correct, it could not complete 100 of our feet, as he gives the length of each face 8 plethra. But little reliance can be placed on his measurements, since in this he exceeds the true length; and to the face of the third Pyramid he only allows 3 plethra, which, calculating the plethrum at 100 feet, is more than half a plethrum short of the real length, each face, according to the measurement of Colonel Howard Vyse, being 354 feet.

The total length of each face of the Great Pyramid when entire I believe to have been 754 or 755 feet, which would be exactly 440 cubits; but neither this, nor the courts of the temples, the statues, and other monuments can be depended upon for the exact length of that Egyptian measure.

Happily other data of a less questionable nature are left us for this purpose, and the graduated cubit in the Nilometer of Elephantine, and the wooden cubits discovered in Egypt, suffice o establish its length, without the necessity of conjecture.

Some have supposed that the Egyptian cubit varied at different periods, and that it consisted at one time of 24, at another of 32 digits; or that there were two cubits of different lengths,—one of 24 digits or 6 palms, the other of 32 digits or 8 palms, employed for different purposes. Some have maintained, with M. Girard, that the cubit used in the Nilometer of Elephantine consisted of 24 digits, others that it contained 32; and numerous calculations have been deduced from these conflicting opinions, respecting the real length of the cubit. But a few words will suffice to show the manner in which that cubit was divided, the number of its digits, and its real length; and respecting the supposed change in the cubit used in the Nilometers of Egypt, I shall only observe, that people far more prone to innovation than the Egyptians would not readily tolerate a similar deviation from long-established custom; and it is obvious that the greatest confusion would have been caused throughout the country, and that agriculture would have suffered incalculable injuries, if the customary announcement of a certain number of cubits for the rise of the Nile had been changed, through the introduction of a cubit of a different length.

The Nilometer in the island of Elephantine is a staircase between two walls descending to the Nile, on one of which is a succession of graduated scales containing one or two cubits, accompanied by inscriptions recording the rise of the river at various periods, during the rule of the Cæsars. Every cubit is divided into fourteen parts, each of 2 digits, giving 28 digits to the cubit; and the length of the cubit is 1 ft. 8 in., or 165 eighths, which is 1 ft. 8.625 in. to each cubit, and 0.736 in. to each digit.

The wooden cubit, published by M. Jomard, is also divided into 28 parts or digits, and therefore accords, both in its division, and, as I shall show, very nearly in length, with the cubit of Elephantine. In this last we learn, from the inscriptions accompanying the scales, that the principal divisions were palms and digits; the cubit being 7 palms or 28 digits: and the former in like manner consisted of 7 palms or 28 digits. The ordinary division, therefore, of the cubit was as follows:

VOL. II.

S

The full division of the wooden Egyptian cubits, which have

There is no indication of a foot, and the 15 last digits are solely occupied with fractional parts, beginning with a 16th, and ending in a digit, from which we may conclude that the smallest measurement in the Egyptian scale of length was the 16th of a digit, or the 26th of an inch.

The lengths of different Egyptian cubits are:

The careless manner in which the graduation of the scales of