The Arkansas banner., 1845-04-23
From the Boston Eceniag 7raascyfpt.
ASTONISHING FACTS IN RELATION
 TO TIE EGYPTIAN PYRAMIDS.


 constructed, afford scope for long dissertation, because, independently of the science and skill requisite for their adaptation the dista11- ceS from which most of them were brought proves that each monarch's sway extended all over Egypt and Lower Nubia, if not be- yond; and in relation to this subject we ga- thef the following flcts from the second lec- ture of Mir. Gliddon's new course.
 Geologically considered, Egypt is a very peculiar country. the quarries of different kinds of stone lying at great distances from each other in distinctly marked localities If you see a piece of basalt on the beach oi the Mediterranean, you know that there is no basatic quarry nearer than between the first and second cataract, and, when you find a block of granite at Memphis, you know that no granite exists but at the first cataract -nearer than the peninsula of Mount Sinai. Every civilization and extended dominion is indicated in these facts, and when we reflect upon them, we almost think we witness the work of transportation going on; that we see the builders, and the buildings them selves in the process of erection. The blocks of Arabian limestone used in the in- terior of the pyramids were brought from the ancient quarres of Toorah, on the opposite side of the Nile, distant about 1!5 or 20 miles from each pyramid. These very quar- ries are vast halls, as 1t were, eXcavated in the living rock, wherein entire armies might encamp, arc adorned with now mutllated ta- blcts, recording the age of their respective opening by different Pharaohs, not only show the rery beds whence the stupcndous blocks of some of the pyramids were taken, but arc in themselves works as wondrous and sub lime as the NIemphite pyramids! nay, at the very foot of these quarries lie the countless tombs and sarcophagi of numbered genera tions of ancient quarrymen! These quarries are ol intense archaeological interest, because the tablets i'll them record that stone was cut ill them for Memphis, on such day, such a month, such a year of the reign of such king; and these kings begin from the remote times before the sixteenth dynasty, and, at different intervals, come down through the Pharaonic period with many of the others, till We reach the Ptolemaic epoch, and end with Latin inscriptions similar to others in Egypt, attesting that '.thcse quarries were worked" ill the propitious era of our lords and emperors Cervcrus and Antoninus, thus enabling us to descend almost step by step from the remote antiquity of 2,000 years B, C. down to 200 years after the Christian era. The hand of modern barbarisln, promt- ed by the destruetiveness of Mahommed Ali has, since lS30, done more to dciace these tablets-to blow up many of these halls Tn sheer wantonnass, than has been effected by time in 4,000 yearsl
 Every atom of the hundred thousand tons of granite used ia the pyramids was cut at Syene, the first cataract, distant 640 miles. The blocks, some of which are 40 feet long, had to be cut out of their beds with wooden wedges and copper chisels; then polished with emery till they were as smooth as look ing glass, and then carried by land half mile to the river-placed on ralts and Aoated down 640 miles to Memphis-brought by canals to the foot of the Lybiaa chain-con- veyed by land over gigantic causeways from one mile to three m length to the pyramids l for which they were intended, and then ele- vated by machinery and placed in their pre- sent position, with a skill and masonic pre- cision that has confounded the most scientific European engineer with amazement. The very baSaA sarcophagi that once held the mummy of the Pharaohs, in the inmost re- cesses of these pyramdal mausolea, 8j feet long by g broad and 3 deep, were all brought from Lower Nubia, from the hasaltic quarres of the second cataract, not nearer than 750 miles up the river!
 Looking into the interior of the pyramids, there is still much to stagger belief-to ex- cite our admiration. In the pyramid of five steps, the upper beams that support the roof of the chamber arc of oak, larch and cedar. not one of which trees grow in Egypt, and establish the fact of the timber trade with illyria, Asia Minor, and Mount Lebanon in ages long before Abrahaml In the fragments of a mummy the cloth is found 10 be satu- rated with Pisasp sphaltgmn-Jew's pitch or btumen Judiacum, compounded of vegiable from the Archipelago, and of Asphaltum of the Dead Sea in Palestine; we find gam ara- bic that does not grow nearer than 1900 from the pyramid, attesting commerce with Upper Nuba. The gold lcqf came from the mines of Suakim on the Red Sea. or from remote Fazogla. The liquor which cleansed out the body of the mummy was cedra, the fluid rosin of the pinus cedrus, that grows not nearer than Syria. The i spices send Us to the Indian ocean-the aloes to Succatra-lhe cinnamon to Ceylon, the
 
 ancient Taprohane-and then the artS and sciences brought to bear upon the pyramids that must have arrived at perfection long before that day, are not only themes for end- less reflection, but oblige Us to confess that in chronology we are yet children. ]
 Among his novel and strange assertions in relation to the science of the ancient Egyp- tians, Mt. Gliddon maintained that from the very nature of their country, and the vast fossil remains in their quarres, Sc. the F. gyptian priests must have been geoogisis; and referred to his "chapters,n page 49-for the remarks of the priest of Solon, s.Y ou mentioned one delugo only, whereas many happened''-add other evidences, that the Egyptians recognised in their mythology and chronology of the world vast periods of time, anteriorto the creation of man.
 CoRNsrALK SuGAR-The manufacture of. sugar from cornstalks promises to become an extensive and profitable branch of business at the west. Mir. John Beal, of New Harmony, Indiana, has made 395 lbs. of good sugar this season, from the cornstalks that grew on hreo- aI