Again, a century ago the French scientific expedition, planned by the great Napoleon, which collected for the use of all the world facts of importance connected with the sites, the buildings, the inscriptions, and everything which could be got at relating to the life and language of the ancient Egyptians, had not even been thought of; indeed, it only commenced its labours in 1798, and the intellectual world will for ever be a debtor to the man who planned it. I know of no more striking proof of the wit of man than the gradual unravelling of the strange hieroglyphic signs in which the learning of the ancient Egyptians was enshrined; and there are few things more remarkable in the history of scientific investigation than the way in which a literature has been already brought together which is appalling in its extent; and yet it may well be that, vast as this literature is at present, it is but the vanguard of a much more stupendous one to follow; for we are dealing with a nation which we now know existed completely equipped in many ways at least seven thousand five hundred years ago. It forms no part of the present work to give an account of the unravelling to which I have referred, one which finds a counterpart in the results achieved by the spectroscope in another scientific field. But a brief reference to one of the most brilliant achievements of the century may be permitted, and the more as it will indicate the importance of one of the most valued treasures in our national collections. I refer to the Rosetta Stone in the Egyptian Gallery of the British Museum. It was the finding of this stone in 1799 by Boussard, a captain of French artillery at Rosetta, which not only showed the baselessness of the systems of suggested interpretations of the hieroglyphics which had been in vogue from the time of Kircher downwards, but by its bilingual record in hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek characters, paved the way for men of genius like Thomas Young (1814) and Champollion (1822). The latter must be acknowledged as the real founder of the system of interpretation which has held its own against all opposition, and has opened the way to inquiries into the history of the past undreamt of when the century was young. Chateaubriand nobly said of him, "Ses admirables travaux auront la durée des monuments qu'il nous a fait connaître."