The chronology of ancient Egypt is a subject not without its difficulties, open to a variety of opinion, and involved in perplexing uncertainty. Nevertheless, the mind naturally yearns for information as to the time of an occurrence, and the opportunity of comparing it with coincident events. Ptolemy Philadelphus made a first step towards a better state of knowledge, when in the year 250 B.C. he commissioned Manetho, an Egyptian priest, experienced in the learning of Heliopolis, to draw up a list of the kings of Egypt from the earliest times. Manetho performed his task ably; but, alas! the book was injured, and in troublous times a part of it was lost: nevertheless, that which remains is still a valuable record; and had the book been preserved entire, it would have settled many problems at present difficult of solution. Manetho groups the kings of Egypt into thirty-four reigning families or dynasties, each containing a number of kings, and by calculating backwards, from the known to the unknown, he arrives at the year 5504 B.C. as the date of Menes, the first king of the first dynasty; that is to say, nearly seven thousand years from the present time. It is only fair to say, however, that several English authorities, including Sir Gardner Wilkinson, have declared against his dates, and have assumed the year 2700 B.C. to be more correct; Josephus says 2320; Bunsen, 3623; and Brugsch, 4455: in fact, a difference exists, on this point, between the German Egyptologists alone, of upwards of two thousand years. Under such circumstances it is encouraging to meet with an authority like Mariette Bey, Conservator of the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities at Boulak, one who has the best opportunities of investigation, and has devoted himself thoroughly to his work, express his confidence in the fidelity of Manetho’s list, and, at least provisionally, adopt his dynasties and his dates. Modern discoveries, according to Mariette, have tended to corroborate Manetho’s calculations; such, for example, as the tablets of Abydos, of which one is preserved in the British Museum, and more especially the tablet recently found by himself at Sakkarah, in the tomb of an Egyptian priest. Next we have the hieroglyphic evidence of the monuments, beginning with those of Usertesen; and later on, such further elucidation by the engraving on the monuments as serves to bring opposing opinion to an exact agreement. Thus, the date of the reign of Psammeticus I., of the twenty-sixth dynasty, as stated by Wilkinson, is 664 B.C.; while that of Bunsen and Mariette is 665 B.C.; even to a year.