As far back as 1888, Flinders Petrie was confronted by the problem of preserving a coffin from which the stucco was peeling. After much consideration, he dropped melted paraffin wax on the weak spots, and thought he had solved the difficulty. To his dismay the wax made matters worse. The outer margins of the wax contracted in cooling, and formed saucer-like depressions which pulled the stucco away from the wood. He was so gravely concerned that for days he racked his brains to find a remedy. At last, he took a brazier full of glowing charcoal, and held it near the waxen saucers. To his joy he saw the wax melting into the cracks and under the stucco, cementing it firmly to the wood again. Nowhere else on this earth are the past and present so intermixed as at Thebes. Here extreme antiquity may be seen side by side with modern science, motor-cars passing asses, and electricity illuminating the ancient tombs. The mummy of Seti II lies with an electric light above his head, so that visitors may have no difficulty in gazing on his features! The remarkable paintings in the tombs are executed so skilfully, the outlines are drawn and coloured so correctly, that the possibility of doing such work in the darkness of an underground chamber has often been questioned. More than once it has been said that the light of torches or candles would be quite inadequate, and it has been suggested that the Egyptians may have anticipated modern science by using electric light thousands of years ago. That the Egyptians were clever is beyond all doubt, that they may have known things of which we to-day are ignorant is more than possible, but the decorations of the tombs are no evidence that they were conversant with the use of electricity. The ancient methods of lighting the tombs so that the artists could see to work were after all quite simple. The artists worked by the light of the sun. The sun might be perhaps a hundred feet or more away along a passage, yet a white garment would serve excellently for reflecting the light into the tomb. Professor Flinders Petrie has worked wonders with the lid of a biscuit box, and in bygone days a man might often have been seen holding a tin lid at the mouth of a tunnel leading into a tomb, deflecting the ray of light right into the tomb, to enable the Egyptologist to take photographs. If the lid of a biscuit box happened to be missing, then a turkish towel was made to serve the same purpose. The actinic qualities of the sun in the Nile valley are indeed remarkable.