To these evidences of the inquisitive energy of the age, it has added new and important means of study and investigation. The principles of interpretation which originated in the study of Egyptian monuments, have guided inquiries in other quarters of the globe, and the discovery of a key to the hieroglyphics of the Nile has thus reflected light on the progress of monumental researches throughout the world. The science of philology, so important in considering the affinities of nations, has been almost wholly created within fifty years. Franklin lived and died without a knowledge of it. Astronomy has been employed to some extent to detect the chronology of architectural ruins, and even the antique history of America has been illustrated by the record of an eclipse among the ancient Mexican picture-writings.[7] Geology, in her labors to determine the character of the exhumed bones and shells of extinct classes of the animal creation of former eras, has not failed to impart the most important knowledge of the physical history of the planet we occupy. Electricity and magnetism have also enlarged their boundaries. Chemistry is in the process of fulfilling the highest expectations. All these sources of knowledge have been poured into the lap of geography and ethnography, and given us a far better and truer knowledge of the character, resources, and position of the nations of the world. And after making every allowance for the literary complacency of the age, we are yet unable to point to a prior epoch of the world when man had so fully recovered his position in the scale of civilization, and in the knowledge of the various phenomena in science, letters and arts, on which his true advance depends. [7] Vide Gallatin's paper--Trans. Am. Eth. Society, vol. I.