regret the loss of so important a record of Egyptian antiquity. But even this loss is not irreparable! The monuments and the papyri, especially those of the dynasty of the Ramessids, contain thousands of texts and notices of a purely geographical kind, making frequent allusion to topographical positions ; besides which, a very considerable number of inscriptions, engraved on the walls of the temples, contain tables more or less extensive, which give us the most exact knowledge of the political divisions of Egypt, and the most complete lists of the departments of that country, accompanied by a host of the most curious details. Let me lay before you the scattered leaves of the lost book of which I have just spoken. Our purpose is to collect them carefully, to put them together in their relation to each other, to try to fill up the gaps, and finally to make out the list of them. After having been engaged on this work for twenty years, I have succeeded, at the beginning of this year, in reuniting the membra disjecta of the great Corpus Geographic of Egypt, which is composed, according to the Index of my collections, of a number exceeding 3,600 geographical names. In the work of applying the laws of a sound and calm criticism to these rich materials, without allowing myself to be enticed by an accidental resemblance of form in the foreign proper names, when compared with the Egyptian names, I have undertaken to traverse Egypt through all its quarters, in order to obtain a knowledge of the ancient ground in its modern condition, and to satisfy myself, from my own eyesight, of the changes which the surface of the soil has undergone in different parts of the country during the course of the past centuries. Having in this manner accomplished a labour which had the only drawback of being sometimes beyond my strength, but which has never worn out my patience, I have the honour of presenting its results, in the form of a summary, to this honourable Congress, as a tribute of respect and esteem due to the illustrious scholars here assembled. While, for my own part, I experience deep satisfaction at having in some sort reached the goal which I proposed to myself twenty years ago, it would prove, on the other hand, my highest recompense, to learn from your judgment that I have recovered a great part of the lost book of the Geography of Ancient Egypt. The application of the geographical results settled and laid down in this summary, which will form the special subject of the present meeting, will furnish you with a fair test of the importance of these results and of their value to historical science. Will you permit me to begin my exposition by a remark concerning the general topography of the country which we are about to traverse, in order to discover and follow the traces of the Hebrews during their sojourn in Egypt? All the scholars, who have given attention to this subject, are agreed that this country lay on the Eastern side of Lower Egypt, to the east of the ancient Pelusiac branch, which has disappeared from the map of modern Egypt, but the direction of which is clearly indicated by the position of the ruins of several great cities which stood on its banks in ancient times. B Beginning from the South of the country in question, the city of Anu, the same which Holy Scripture designates by the name of On, identifies for us the position of the Heliopolite nome of the classic authors. Next, the mounds of Tel-Bast, near the modern village of Zagazig, enable us to fix the ancient site of the city of Pi-bast, a name which Holy Scripture has rendered by the very exact transcription of Pibeseth,3 while the Greeks called it Bubastus. It was the chief city of the ancient Bubastite nome. Pursuing our course towards the North, the vast mounds, near a modern town called Qous by the Copts and Faqous by the Arabs, remove all doubt as to the site of the ancient city of Phacoussa, Phacoussæ, or Phacoussan, which, according to the Greek accounts, was regarded as the chief city of the Arabian nome. It is the same place to which the monumental lists have given the appellation of Gosem, a name easily recognized in that of 'Guesem of Arabia,' used by the Septuagint Version as the geographical translation of the famous Land of Goshen.4 Directly to the North, between the Arabian nome, with its capital Gosem, and the Mediterranean Sea, the monumental lists make known to us a district, the Egyptian name of which, the point of the North,' 3 Ezek. xxx. 17. 6 Gen. xlv. 10; xlvi. 34; xlvii. 4, 6, 27; Ex. viii. 22; ix. 26. BB indicates at once its northerly position. The Greek writers call it the Nomos Sethroites, a word which seems to be derived from the appellation Set-ro-hatu, the region of the river-mouths,' which the ancient Egyptians applied to this part of their country. While classical antiquity uses the name of Heracleopolis Parva to designate its chief town, the monumental lists cite the same place under the name of 'Pitom,' with the addition, in the country of Sukot.' Here we at once see two names of great importance, which occur in Holy Scripture under the same forms, the Pithom and the Succoth of the Hebrews.5 Without dwelling, for the moment, on this curious discovery, I pass on to the last district of this region, situated in the neighbourhood of the preceding one, between the Pelusiac and Tanitic branches of the Nile. The Egyptian monuments designate it by a compound name, which signifies the beginning of the Eastern country,' in complete agreement with its topographical position. Its chief town is named, sometimes Zoan, sometimes Pi-ramses, the city of Ramses.' Here again we have before us two names, which Holy Scripture has preserved perfectly in the two names, Zoan and Ramses, of one and the same Egyptian city. As the new geographical definitions which I have now set forth tend necessarily to a certain conclusion, I do not for a moment hesitate to declare that I willingly take upon myself the whole responsibility, as much for the accuracy of the philological part of 5 See reff. above. Respecting the name of Sukot, or Tukot, the reader is referred to the Note at Vol. I. p. 233.-ED. my statement, as for the precision of the geographical sites which I have brought to your knowledge. After these remarks, I return to Pitom and Ramses. When you have entered, at Port Saïd, from the Mediterranean into the maritime Canal of Suez, your vessel crosses the middle of a great plain, from one end to the other, before stopping on the south at the station called by the engineers of the canal El-Kantara. But during this transit you must give up all hope of being cheered by the view of those verdant and smiling meadows, those forests of date-palms and mulberry-trees, which give to the interior of Lower Egypt-covered with numerous villages and intersected with thousands of canals-the picturesque character of a real garden of God. This vast plain stretches out from the two sides of the maritime canal, without affording your eye, as it ranges over the wide space to the farthest bounds of the horizon, the least point to rest upon. It is a sea of sand, with an infinite number of islets covered with reeds and thorny plants, garnished with a sort of white efflorescence, which leads us to recognize the presence of salt water. In spite of the blue sky, the angel of death has spread his wings over this vast sad solitude, where the least sign of life seems an event. You but rarely meet with the tents of some poor Bedouins, who have wandered into this desert to seek food for their lean cattle. But the scene changes from the time when the Nile, in the two months of January and February, has begun to cover the lands of Lower Egypt with its |