As an example of the fanciful way in which this subject is sometimes treated, I may cite the fabulous antiquity attributed to the great sphinx of Gizeh. We are told that it is the most ancient monument in Egypt, antedating the pyramids, and belonging to the time of the mystic 'Horshesu,' or people of Horus, of Egyptian tradition. In one sense this is true, since the sphinx is merely an undisturbed mass of the eocene limestone of the plateau. But its form must have been given to it after the surrounding limestone was quarried away by the builders of the pyramids, and consequently long after the founding of Memphis by the first Egyptian king Mena. The sphinx is, in short, a block of stone left by the quarrymen, and probably shaped by them as an appropriate monument to the workmen who died while the neighbouring pyramids were being built. A similar monument, of immensely greater antiquity from a geological point of view, exists near Montreal, in a huge boulder of Laurentian gneiss, placed on a pedestal by the workmen employed on the Victoria Bridge, in memory of immigrants who died of ship fever in the years when the bridge was being built. It follows from all this that the monumental history of Egypt, extending to about 3000 years B.C., gives us the whole story of the country, unless some chance memorial of a population belonging to the post-glacial age should in future be found. There are, however, things in Egypt which illustrate prehistoric times in other countries, and some of these have lately thrown a new and strange light on the early history of Palestine, and especially on the Bible history.