[88] "The old Troglodytes, pile villagers, and bog people, prove to be quite a respectable society. They have heads so large that many a living person would be only too happy to possess such."--A. Mitchell, _The Past in the Present_, Edinburgh, 1880. [89] I have given in the annexed plates a few examples of the early hieroglyphics on which the modern Chinese system of writing is based, selected from a limited number collected by the early Jesuit fathers in China, and contained in the _Mémoirs concernant l'Histoire, &c. des Chinois, par les Missionaires de Pekin_, vol. i., Paris, 1776. The modern Chinese characters conveying the same idea are attached, and their derivation from the pictorial hieroglyphics, by modification or contraction, is in nearly all cases obvious. [90] "The Porcelain Tower of Nankin, once one of the seven wonders of the world, can now only be found piecemeal in walls of peasants' huts."--Gutzlaff, _Hist. China_, vol. i. p. 372. [91] The outer casing of the pyramid of Cheops, which Herodotus (_Euterpe_, 125) states to have still exhibited in his time an inscription, telling how much was expended (one thousand six hundred talents of silver) in radishes, onions, and garlic for the workmen, has entirely disappeared; as also, almost completely, the marble casing of the adjacent pyramid of Sen-Saophis. According to tradition the missing marbles in each instance were taken to build palaces with in Cairo. [92] "The work of destruction was carried on methodically. From the Caspian Sea to the Indus, the Mongols ruined, within four years, more than four centuries of continuous labour have since restored. The most flourishing cities became a mass of ruins: Samarkand, Bokhara, Nizabour, Balkh, and Kandahar shared in the same destruction."--Gutzlaff, _Hist. China_, vol. i. p. 358. [93] "An army of 700,000 Mongols met half the number of Mahommedans."--_Ibid._ p. 357. [94] Those interested in the subject may read with great advantage the section on dynamical geology in Dana's valuable manual. He points out the large amount of wear accomplished by wind carrying sand in arid regions, by seeds falling in some crevice, and bursting rocks open through the action of the roots developed from their sprouting, to say nothing of the more ordinarily recognized destructive agencies of frost and rain, carbonic acid resulting from vegetable decomposition, &c. [95] Darwin, in _Vegetable Mould and Earth-worms_, has shown that earthworms play a considerable part in burying old buildings, even to a depth of several feet. [96] Rev. T. K. Cheyne, Article "Deluge," _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 1877. François Lenormant, "The Deluge, its Traditions in Ancient Histories," _Contemporary Review_, Nov., 1879. [97] Bunsen estimates that 20,000 years were requisite for the formation of the Chinese language. This, however, is not conceded by other philologists.