Clarksville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1865-1867, 1866-04-13
HISTORICAL READINGS, No. 2.

Placed in narrow, but fertile valley
enclosed by inhospitable desetts-having a
population active and Industrious, who,
while not cast of from intercourse with
other nations, were of necessity thrown close
together, and fixed in residence. from the
natural richness of the country being always
able to support large class who did not
depend on immediate exertion for subsistence
possessing thus, these prime requisites Of
civilization, close population, fixedness Of
abode, and wealth, we should expect Egypt
to have arrived at high state of cultivation.
So it was in fact. Every new source of in
formation on this subject, opened up to us,
confirms the opinion, that she was not only
among the earliest, hut among the most ad-
vanced of the nations of the Ancient World.
Before the Hellenic tribes occupied the
shores of the Mediterranean; when Western
Europe was inhabited only by few rude
and scattered tribes; its lands untitled its
seas untraversed; its geographical position
almost unknown, refined and scientific peo-
pie, in the valley of the Nile, enjoyed the
blessings Of high social and political civiliza-
ton. Proud Of her antiquity and wisdom,
Egypt said to Greece, " Ye Greeks are but
children; nowhere among you is there a
knowledge of Antiquity. You have no an
cient belief; no wisdom grown venerable by
age" Greece never disputed thehigh claims
of the venerable Egypt There, her wisest
sages, her law-givers, and poets were accus-
toned TO repair, and deemed their education
imperfect. IL they had not visited the sacred
temples at Memphis and at Thebes. So Of
Thales, Pythagorai, Plato, and other eminent
men of ancient Greece, repaired to Egypt as
to the primal fount Of wisdom. To it, the
Greeks aaid, they were indebted for the first
rudiments of their mathematical and physi-
cal sciences. As in India, and even more
exclusively 80 in Egypt, all scientific know
ledge was confined to the sacred caste; not
merely astronomy and mathematics, but
printing, sculpture, and medicine. How far
they may have advanced in these several
branches, we may not know with certainty.
Of this we are assured that their scientific
knowledge was not superior to that of Greece.
Though the philosophers of the latter coun-
try ever mentioned Egypt with gratitude and
veneration, il is not to be supposed, that
Greece was therefore inferior to the more
anciently civilized country. OF some very
elementary parts of mathematics, the Egypt
ians, we know were Ignorant and in this
branch of pure science, the Greeks made de-
cided progress. Ia
The Egyptians must have been very early
acquainted with the science of astronomy.
This science, from its connexion with life,
agriculture, and commerce, from the changes
in the appearance of the heavens, and in the
seasons, early attracts the attention of peo-
pie in any degree cultivated. Dependent SO
much as they were upon the foundations Of
their river, an early attention to astronomy,
was forced upon the Egyptians. Their
Pyramids were built with reference to the
four cardinal points of the compass and bear
other indications Of their acquaintance with
the phenomena of the heavens. On the
mighty temple at Dendera, in Upper Egypt,
complete Zodiac was sculptured. We have
accounts of eclipses observed about the time
of the settlement of Egypt in Cannan. Be-
fore this, probably some hundreds of years,
their Pyramids had been reared, and the
Scriptures represent them as highly culti-
waited people. The astronomical divisions Of
the year were known to them. They dis
covered the planets. They knew that the
moon turns on its axis as she revolves round
the earth, and they calculated the; Ter mass
must be to that of the earth, astne to seventy
two. They invented also, an instrument
like our astrolable, for observing the altitude
ofthe sun and stars. The system ofastrono-
my which they adopted, before that Of Pto.
lemy came into reception, was, that tht earth
was the centre around which revolved the
moon, the sun, (of which Mercury and
Venus, were but satellites Mars, Jupiter
Saturn, aud the sphere of the fixed stars.
That their mechanical skill was great we
know. The remains Of temples, obelisks
palaces, and catacombs, in Upper and Middle
Egypt, place this beyond controversy
Everywhere we meet with abundant evidencs
Of their skill and genius. They dug an i'm
mense lake for the purpose of irrigating thu
country of Middle Egypt. They had acque'
ducts and canals. They erected temples
of an immense size, and excavated Others
equally capacious cut of the solid mountains
Stone temples of great size they could mov'
from place to place, and in their building
there were blocks of marble and stone 81
large, that modern architects confess ther'
inability to raise them to the places they
still occupy.
IN the Useful arts, Egypt probably exeellec
any nation Of antiquity. iadeed they at
tanned perfection that we could not hav'
imagined possible, considering their appli
canoes and the early period at which theI
lived, did not the learned and patient re
search of scientific travellers in collecting
the irresistible testimony Of their monument
place the matter beyond question. Tn
skill in fine linen aud broidered work ascrib
ed to them by the Prophet Ezekiel, (xxsn.
modern discoveries have shownto be deserv
ed. We find in their ruins, paintings re
presenting them in all departments OF th