The Egyptian sphinxes were figures having a human head and the body of a lion, symbolizing intelligence and power. The most famous of the sphinxes of Egypt is the colossal figure at the base of the Great Pyramid, at Gizeh, sculptured, some think, by Menes, and others, by one of the kings of the Fourth Dynasty. The immense statue, cut out of the native rock, save the fore-legs, which are built of masonry, is ninety feet long and seventy feet high. "This huge, mutilated figure has an astonishing effect; it seems like an eternal spectre. The stone phantom seems attentive; one would say that it hears and sees. Its great ear appears to collect the sounds of the past; its eyes, directed to the east, gaze, as it were, into the future; its aspect has a depth, a truth of expression, irresistibly fascinating to the spectator. In this figure--half statue, half mountain-- we see a wonderful majesty, a grand serenity, and even a sort of sweetness of expression." GLASS MANUFACTURE.--The manufacture of glass, a discovery usually attributed to the Phoenicians, [Footnote: The Phoenicians, being the carriers of antiquity, often received credit among the peoples with whom they traded, for various inventions and discoveries of which they were simply the disseminators.] was carried on in Egypt more than four thousand years ago. The paintings of the monuments represent glass-blowers moulding all manner of articles. Glass bottles, and various other objects of the same material, are found in great numbers in the tombs. Some of these objects show that the ancient Egyptians were acquainted with processes of coloring glass that secured results which we have not yet been able to equal. The Egyptian artists imitated, with marvellous success, the variegated hues of insects and stones. The manufacture of precious gems, so like the natural stone as to defy detection, was a lucrative profession. THE PAPYRUS PAPER.--The chief writing material used by the ancient Egyptians was the noted papyrus paper, manufactured from a reed which grew in the marshes and along the water-channels of the Nile. From the Greek names of this Egyptian plant, _byblos_ and _papyrus_, come our words "Bible" and "paper." The plant has now entirely disappeared from Egypt, and is found only on the Anapus, in the island of Sicily, and on a small stream near Jaffa, in Palestine. Long before the plant became extinct in Egypt an ancient prophecy had declared, "The paper reeds by the brooks ... shall wither, be driven away, and be no more." (Isa. xix. 7.) The costly nature of the papyrus paper led to the use of many substitutes for writing purposes--as leather, broken pottery, tiles, stones, and wooden tablets.