absence of accurate descriptions, and figures of
particular animals and plants, handed down from the earliest periods of
history, such as might have afforded data for comparing the condition of
species, at two periods considerably remote. But, fortunately, we are in
some measure independent of such evidence: for, by a singular accident,
the priests of Egypt have bequeathed to us, in their cemeteries, that
information which the museums and works of the Greek philosophers have
failed to transmit.

For the careful investigation of these documents, we are greatly
indebted to the skill and diligence of those naturalists who accompanied
the French armies during their brief occupation of Egypt: that conquest
of four years, from which we may date the improvement of the modern
Egyptians in the arts and sciences, and the rapid progress which has
been made of late in our knowledge of the arts and sciences of their
remote predecessors. Instead of wasting their whole time, as so many
preceding travellers had done, in exclusively collecting human mummies,
M. Geoffrey and his associates examined diligently, and sent home great
numbers of embalmed bodies of consecrated animals, such as the bull, the
dog, the cat, the ape, the ichneumon, the crocodile, and the ibis.

To those who have never been accustomed to connect the facts of Natural
History with philosophical speculations, who have never raised their
conceptions of the end and import of such studies beyond the mere
admiration of isolated and beautiful objects, or the exertion of skill
in detecting specific differences, it will seem incredible that amidst
the din of arms, and the stirring excitement of political movements, so
much enthusiasm could have been felt in regard to these precious
remains.

In the official report drawn up by the Professors of the Museum at
Paris, on the value of these objects, there are some eloquent passages,
which may appear extravagant, unless we reflect how fully these
naturalists could appreciate the bearing of the facts thus brought to
light on the past history of the globe.

"It seems," say they, "as if the superstition of the ancient Egyptians
had been inspired by Nature, with a view of transmitting to after ages a
monument of her history. That extraordinary and eccentric people, by
embalming with so much care the brutes which were the objects of their
stupid adoration, have left us in their secret grottoes, cabinets of
zoology almost complete.