Beginning of the Scattering.--In the year 721 B. C., soon after the time of Hosea's prophecy, and while a monarch of the same name was reigning over the kingdom of Israel, the Assyrians, under Shalmaneser, came against that kingdom and began to destroy it. In a series of deportations they carried away the ten tribes (Ephraim and all) into captivity. The Lost Tribes.--These are the famous "lost tribes," concerning whom very little is known. Josephus, the Jewish historian, who wrote during the first century after Christ, says that the ten tribes were then beyond the Euphrates, the "river" referred to by Ahijah in his prophecy. Esdras, in the Apocrypha, declares that those tribes went a journey of a year and a half into the north country. The Cairns of Scandinavia.--Missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, returning from Scandinavia, have told of rude monuments--cairns or piles of stones--in that northern region, concerning which tradition says that they were erected many centuries ago by a migrating people. Whether or not these were the tribes of the Assyrian captivity, it is interesting to reflect that it was an Israelitish custom to raise such monuments in commemorating events, especially the migratory movements of the nation. Other Ancient Monuments.--If it be objected that monuments erected by the Ten Tribes, 721 B. C., could not have lasted down to this day, how will the objector account for the perfectly preserved monuments of Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, and other ancient empires, whose remains have been uncovered by modern archaeology? Such a theory will not stagger the faith of the Latter-day Saints, when they recollect that the ruins of Adam's altar are still to be seen in the State of Missouri, where they were identified by the Prophet Joseph Smith, A. D. 1838. To Return from the North.--At all events, it is from "the north country" that the ten tribes are to return, according to ancient and modern prophecy; and it is also a fact that from Scandinavia and the nations of Northern Europe has come much of the blood of Israel--the blood of Ephraim now within the pale of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.