We look today upon the cathedrals of Europe, standing as they have since the Norman conquest, even, in some instances antedating it, and we exclaim that the builders of these impressive edifices built for ages to come. Yet in Egypt the pyramids have stood for almost five thousand years, and it is safe to say that they will proclaim to many millenniums more, the wealth and power of the Pharaohs who raised them for their everlasting abodes. Hundreds of years dwindle in the contemplation of thousands, and these are ever before the student of Egyptian history. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF EGYPT. Egypt is located in the northeastern corner of Africa. To the east lies the Isthmus of Suez--the pathway to Asia, and the Red Sea--separated by a range of mountains from the Valley of the Nile. To the south lies Nubia, and to the west stretches away for hundreds of weary miles the Sahara, the old bed of an extinct ocean. Egypt is by no means the country it is sometimes represented to be on geographical maps. That Egypt someone has called a "geographical fiction." On the contrary, it has always consisted simply of the Nile valley and delta. It is about one-half as large again as the state of Massachusetts, containing approximately 12,000 square miles. The Nile is unlike any river of our land. It takes its rise in a chain of lakes near the Equator. These lakes lie in a heavy rain belt and at a certain season the rainfall is so constant that the river is greatly swollen. It is joined by tributaries which in turn are overflowing with the melting snows of mountains wherein they take their rise, and altogether the main river continues so to increase that it overflows its channel and spreads out into the valley on either side. In America we know how disastrous spring floods frequently become, but here the overflow is violent, tearing down bridges and embankments, bringing injury rather than benefit to the land. In Egypt the rise of the Nile is gradual; dwellings are built on elevations of land or on the outskirts of the valley. Without the yearly inundation there would be no food to maintain the dense population of the country. During the period of high water the Nile is heavily loaded with mud. When the river recedes, this fertile silt is left upon the surface of the land. This, and this alone, has made the land of Egypt different from the deserts on either side of it. And now we see how truly Herodotus spoke when he exclaimed that Egypt is the gift of the Nile. Containing about the same number of miles as our state of Maryland, for numberless years this little country has been the granary for surrounding lands. Thus may we judge of its remarkable fertility.