nations, down to the Christian era. The reaction which followed the expulsion of the Hyksos led to campaigns in Asia on a great scale, in which Egypt came into collision with powerful nations, and for a long time was the dominant power in Western Asia, extending its conquests from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea and Mediterranean, and receiving tribute from Babylon and Nineveh. Then followed wars, waged on more equal terms, with the Hittites, who had founded a great empire in Asia Minor and Syria; and as their power declined and that of Assyria rose, with the long series of warlike Assyrian monarchs, who gradually obtained the ascendency, and not only stripped Egypt of its foreign conquests, but on more than one occasion invaded its territory and captured its principal cities. It is during this period that we find the first of the certain synchronisms between Egyptian history and the Old Testament, beginning with the capture of Jerusalem by Shishak in the reign of Rehoboam, and ending with the captivity of the Jews and temporary conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar. Then came the Persian conquest by Cambyses and alternate periods of national independence and of Persian rule, until the conquest of Alexander and the establishment of the dynasty of the Ptolemies, which lasted until the reign of Cleopatra, and ended finally by the annexation of Egypt as a province of the Roman Empire. The history of this long period is extremely interesting, as showing what may be called the commencement of the modern era of great wars, and of the rise and fall of civilized empires; but for the present purpose I only refer to it as helping to establish the chronological standard which I am in search of as a measuring-rod to gauge the duration of historical time. We may sum up the conclusions derived from Manetho's lists and the monuments as follows:--