The surprises of archæology are magnificent and apparently inexhaustible. It is continually bringing forth things new and old, and often it happens that the newest are the oldest of all. Whether this or the exact converse is the case in regard to the latest discovery of Biblical archæology is a question not to be determined offhand; but the interest and importance of the question can hardly be overrated. There are now deposited in the British Museum fifteen leather slips, on the forty folds of which are written portions of the Book of Deuteronomy in a recension entirely different from that of the received text. The character employed in the manuscript is similar to that of the famous Moabite stone and of the Siloam inscription, and, therefore, the mere palæographical indication should give the probable date of the slips as the ninth century B. C., or sixteen centuries earlier than any other clearly authenticated manuscript of any portion of the Old Testament. The sheepskin slips are literally black with age, and are impregnated with a faint odor as of funeral spices; the folds are from 6 to 7 inches long and about 3½ inches wide, containing each about ten lines, written only on one side. So far as they have yet been deciphered, they exhibit two distinct handwritings, though the same archaic character is used throughout. In some cases the same passages of Deuteronomy occur in duplicate on distinct slips, as though the fragments belonged to two contemporary transcriptions made by different scribes from the same original text. At first sight no writing whatever is perceptible; the surface seems to be covered with an oily or glutinous substance, which so completely obscures the writing beneath that a photograph of some of the slips--which we have had an opportunity of examining side by side with the slips themselves--exhibits no trace of the text. But when the leather is moistened with spirits of wine the letters become momentarily visible beneath the glossy surface. These extraordinary fragments were brought to England by Mr. Shapira, of Jerusalem, a well known bookseller and dealer in antiquities. Mr. Shapira's name will be remembered in connection with certain archæological problems which have been solved by some scholars in a manner not altogether creditable to his sagacity.