DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14562#0180
136
by comparing its present hydraulic indications by careful
operations with those we had ascertained and metrically ma-
sonified in its dimensions twenty-four centuries ago, we should
have determined the changes that may have been at work
in the physical constitution of the river, the land, and its two
seas, and by repairing to the same oracle, and vocalizing it
after the expiration of another period of twenty-four cen-
turies, we should have obtained data of historical value
based on forty-eight centuries of observation, and have laid
solider foundations, for those who delight in building edifices
of theoretical speculation, than those derived from two or
three centuries of observation. On the other hand, if we
were to compare the cosmical changes which may have taken
place during the last sixty-seven centuries with the state of
things recorded in the first Haran of Memphis, and invent
methods of recording the results in an indestructible manner,
we should, at the expiration of a hundred and thirty-four
centuries from the date of the Haran, acquire more valuable
information in every department of science,—the physical and
moral improvement of the human race keeping pace with
their gradual progress in knowledge. Monuments in stone
and in writings concur in teaching the great lesson that science
is the foundation of the happiness of man, that its accumu-
lation and preservation depend on the free and intelligent
exercise of the divine faculties intrusted to him by his Maker,
that there is no law compelling to progress or to retrograda-
tion, and that he is the absolute master of his destinies.
3. The Rosetta Section.
The port town of Rosetta, the T-Rashit of the Copts, is
situated on the left bank of the western and the principal
branch of the Nile. It is distant three miles from the sea,
but six miles by the river to its bar in its ebb season, and
from eight to ten miles in its flood period. It is the best-
built town in Egypt, the material of construction being cal-
cined brick, and it occupies the northern half of the ancient
city of Bolbitine, the ruins of which rise in mounds of con-
siderable extent and elevation to the south. Hundreds of noble
by comparing its present hydraulic indications by careful
operations with those we had ascertained and metrically ma-
sonified in its dimensions twenty-four centuries ago, we should
have determined the changes that may have been at work
in the physical constitution of the river, the land, and its two
seas, and by repairing to the same oracle, and vocalizing it
after the expiration of another period of twenty-four cen-
turies, we should have obtained data of historical value
based on forty-eight centuries of observation, and have laid
solider foundations, for those who delight in building edifices
of theoretical speculation, than those derived from two or
three centuries of observation. On the other hand, if we
were to compare the cosmical changes which may have taken
place during the last sixty-seven centuries with the state of
things recorded in the first Haran of Memphis, and invent
methods of recording the results in an indestructible manner,
we should, at the expiration of a hundred and thirty-four
centuries from the date of the Haran, acquire more valuable
information in every department of science,—the physical and
moral improvement of the human race keeping pace with
their gradual progress in knowledge. Monuments in stone
and in writings concur in teaching the great lesson that science
is the foundation of the happiness of man, that its accumu-
lation and preservation depend on the free and intelligent
exercise of the divine faculties intrusted to him by his Maker,
that there is no law compelling to progress or to retrograda-
tion, and that he is the absolute master of his destinies.
3. The Rosetta Section.
The port town of Rosetta, the T-Rashit of the Copts, is
situated on the left bank of the western and the principal
branch of the Nile. It is distant three miles from the sea,
but six miles by the river to its bar in its ebb season, and
from eight to ten miles in its flood period. It is the best-
built town in Egypt, the material of construction being cal-
cined brick, and it occupies the northern half of the ancient
city of Bolbitine, the ruins of which rise in mounds of con-
siderable extent and elevation to the south. Hundreds of noble