In early Greece, a purely Egyptian element was planted by Cecrops, a native of Säis, in the Delta, but whether he was a native Copt does not appear. He migrated B.C. about 1550, and married a daughter of the Pelasgi, so it is not likely he introduced any of his own language. The same may be said of the colonist Danaus and his family, though he, as brother of the king Sesostris, was doubtless of unmingled Egyptian race. A much stronger element must be accounted for in the Phœnician immigration of Cadmus, and the constant intercourse kept up by that people with continental Greece. Crete should be regarded as the stepping-stone on the auspicious high way, the first amalgam wherein Egyptian, Pelasgic, and Phœnician civilization mingled, and, when properly blended, was transferred to the main land. Then came the purely Japhetic element, and gave tone and character to all. That great genius of Hellas, whose name has perished like that of the inventor of the plow, but who lives enshrined in the most intellectual of all monuments, worked upon this eastern element as he did upon every other capability submitted to his inventive and intellectualizing power. He rendered the limited alphabet of Shem universal, eliminating the signs for harsh, guttural sounds, and by preserving those which were rejected, in the series of the numerals. The twenty-two letters of Shem became the twenty-four of Japhet, and thus, by their combined energies, a philosophical alphabet was produced, at once the aggregate of all Asiatic idioms, and the guaranty of all European culture. It was the receiver and transmitter of the most noble treasures ever garnered in the realms of intellect and emotion, a pure medium for the investigating faculty of the senses, as well as the mightiest weapon for the plastic and vitalizing power of imagination, the Greeks ever possessed, and which imperishable heritage they have left as the richest gift to coming generations.