These lines were published by Dr. Brugsch-Bey before he had heard of my discoveries of metals and of a modern turquoise-digging in the Land of Midian. He had decided that "'Atháka" lay to the east of Suez, chiefly from the insistence laid upon the shipping; sea-going craft would certainly not be required for a sail of three or four hours. Moreover, as I have elsewhere shown, Jebel 'Atakáh, the "Mountain of Deliverance," at the mouth of the Wady Musá, was referred to the Jews at some time after the Christian era, and probably during the fourth and fifth centuries, when pilgrimages to the apocryphal Mounts Sinai became the fashion. During the summer of 1877, Dr. Brugsch-Bey was kind enough to copy and to translate the original document, upon which he founded his short account of the "'Atháka" copper-mines. I offer it to the reader in full. The order of the alphabet is that adopted by Dr. Brugsch-Bey. It relies for the first letter upon the authority of Plutarch, who asserts that the Egyptian abecedarium numbered the square of five (twenty-five); and that it opened with --<Greek>--, which also expresses the god Thoth;--this is the case with --<hieroglyph>-- the leaf of some water-plant. The sequence of the letters has been suggested by a number of minor considerations: we begin with the vowels, and proceed to the labial, the liquids, and so forth.[EN#49] The sense of the highly interesting inscription, in its English order, would be:-- "I have sent my commissioners to the land 'Atháka; to the (those)[EN#50] great mines of copper (or coppers)[EN#51] which are in this place ('Atháka); and their (i.e. the commissioners') ships[EN#52] were loaded, carrying them (the metals); while other (commissioners were sent and) marched on their asses. No! one never (ter-tot) had heard, since the (days of the olden) kings, that these (copper) mines had been found.[EN#53] The loads (i.e. of the ships and the asses) carried copper; the loads were by myriads for their ships, which went thence (i.e. from the mines) to Egypt. (After) happily arriving, the loads were landed, according to royal order, under the Pavilion,[EN#54] in form of copper- bricks;[EN#55] they were numerous as frogs (in the marsh),[EN#56] and in quality they were gold (Nub) of the third degree.[EN#57] I made them admired (by) all the world as marvellous things." The following lines upon the subject of Midian are from the notes (p. 143) of Jacob Golius in "Alferganum" (small 4to. Amsterdam, 1669), a valuable translation with geographical explanations. Ahmad ibn Mohammed ibn Kathír el-Fargháni derived his "lakab" or cognomen from the province of Farghán (Khokand), to the north-east of the Oxus; he wrote a work upon astronomy, and he flourished about A.H. 184 (= A.D. 800).