[10] Baron Bünsen says that “No nation of the earth has shown so much zeal and ingenuity, so much method and regularity in recording the details of private life, as the Egyptians.” They were also most expert engineers; the canal from the Nile to the Red Sea, which may be called the canal of Rameses II., being protected at the Suez mouth by a system of hydraulic appliances to obviate difficulties arising from the variable levels of the water. [11] “It is a strange fact that the early Egyptians, like the Hindoos, had a religious dread of the sea,”(?); and yet in the reign of Necho, the son of Psammetichus, they actually accomplished the circumnavigation of Africa: the voyage took three years. [12] Dr. Draper’s “History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.” [13] “One momentous consequence of the Shepherd conquest appears to have been that the expelled Shemites carried back with them into Syria the arts and letters of Egypt, which were thence diffused by the maritime Phœnicians over the opposite shores of Greece. Thus Egypt began at this epoch to come in contact at once with the East and the West, with Asia and with Europe.” [14] “Euterpe,” book ii. chap. lxxvii. [15] Lord Bacon mentions somewhere in his works that the ancients discovered that salt water will dissolve salt put into it in less time than fresh water. The same great philosopher also affirms that “salt water passing through earth through ten vessels, one within another, hath not lost its saltness; but drained through twenty, becomes fresh.” [16] The Russians have a custom of presenting bread and salt to the newly-married bride and bridegroom. In archæology we have salt-silver, one penny at the feast of St. Martin, given by the tenants of some manors, as a commutation for the service of carrying their lord’s salt from market to his larder; an old English custom. [17] According to the researches of the late Mr. George Smith, Babylonian literature is of a much more ancient date than the histories of the Bible; which fact would tend to indicate that the intellectual development of that Eastern monarchy may have been coëval with that of the African. [18] Dr. Draper’s “History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.” [19] Leviticus ii. 13. [20] 2 Kings ii. 21. [21] Judges ix. 45. [22] 2 Chronicles xiii. 5. [23] Numbers xviii. 19. [24] Ezekiel xvi. 4. [25] Job v. 6. [26] St. Mark ix. 50. [27] _Ibid._ [28] Huxley’s “Physiography.” [29] Sir Robert Christison’s “Treatise on Poisons.” [30] Sea-water contains 2·5 per cent. of the chloride of sodium; some say 4 per cent.; according to others, 5·7. [31] It is well worth remembering that the Thames carries away from its basin above Kingston 548,230 tons of saline matter annually. [32] Hence arose the custom of asking for salt at the Eton Montem. [33] Sir R. S. Murchison, “The Mineral Springs of Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.” [34] Dr. Mantell’s “Wonders of Geology.”