DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11610#0160
CHAPTER XI.
THE fresh light on the PAST.
It might seem as if the researches described in
these chapters were, though interesting in them-
selves, yet not of particular account in the wider
view of human history and civilization. It is to focus
together this new information, to show the results
which flow from it, and to give a connected idea of
our fresh light on the past, that this chapter is placed
here. The application of scientific principles to
archaeology, the opening of fresh methods of enquiry,
and the rigorous notice of the period of everything
found, have been as fruitful in the East as it has
proved to be in the West.
In Egypt, the oldest condition of the present
country that is known—the beginning of history as
distinct from geology—is an age of great rainfall and
denudation; succeeding to the geological age, in
which the existing masses of surface gravels were
laid down. This rain nourished a dense vegetation,
of which the chance remains may be seen in the
various silicificd forests which occur where circum-
stances favoured their preservation. The amount of
water falling on the country swelled the volume of
THE fresh light on the PAST.
It might seem as if the researches described in
these chapters were, though interesting in them-
selves, yet not of particular account in the wider
view of human history and civilization. It is to focus
together this new information, to show the results
which flow from it, and to give a connected idea of
our fresh light on the past, that this chapter is placed
here. The application of scientific principles to
archaeology, the opening of fresh methods of enquiry,
and the rigorous notice of the period of everything
found, have been as fruitful in the East as it has
proved to be in the West.
In Egypt, the oldest condition of the present
country that is known—the beginning of history as
distinct from geology—is an age of great rainfall and
denudation; succeeding to the geological age, in
which the existing masses of surface gravels were
laid down. This rain nourished a dense vegetation,
of which the chance remains may be seen in the
various silicificd forests which occur where circum-
stances favoured their preservation. The amount of
water falling on the country swelled the volume of