The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-13

stone and with a conglomerate mixture of , flint and limestone of curious formation. The gorge shows evidences Of having been cut out by some mighty stream of the past There are masses of debris along the sides. and the way is rough except on the road which has been made by the explorers.
 Looking at the valley from the Nile one would not suppose that it was any thing other than a desert gorge. and it was not until I was right in it that I realized it was a cemetery. There are no gravestones or monuments, and the kings obliterated every sign that might indi- cate their burial places. They dug out great chambers under the bed Of this dried-up river and arranged cisterns for their proper drainage. but when they had finished they left everything as it was in nature; and for this reason their tombs remained. for ages untouched and unknown.
 In the Tombs.
 From time to time, however one or another was discovered by future gen erations Strabo, the Greek geoprapher, who was alive when Christ was born, speaks of forty of them as being worthy of a visit, and others are mentioned by writers later on. During our generation most of them were again lost, and it was not until some Arab grave robbers began to sell curious antiquities that it was found that the tombs had again been discovered and were being rifled by these vandals. The archeologists then went to work, and their explorations have re- suited in the opening up of tomb after tomb, until we now have what might be called a subterranean city of the dead, here in the heart of the L4ibyan desert The tombs are nothing like our burial vaults They are large rooms cut out of the solid rock, with walls as straight and as smooth as those of mason. They are reached by many steps, going down inclined planes until they bring you far | below the surface of the valley and away down under the mountains Each l0ing had his own tomb, and he decorated 1t with sketches and paintings represent | ing the life of his time. The ceilings are beautiful From some of them the figures of gods and goddesses look down upon you. Others are colored In geometric lines, and in some men and women are carved fin bas-relefs out of the solid rock and then painted. Many of the scenes are religious, and from them the Egyptoogist is able to tell us what the people of that day believed. They also show how they worked and lived when our remote ancestors were savages in the wilds of Europe and Asia.
 | In some of the tombs I saw the mas siye stone boxes in which tho mummies of the dead kings lay. I measured one which was ten feet long, six feet wide and eight feet high. It was hollowed out of a solid block Of granite. and it weighs many tons That mighty burial casket was cut out of the quarres of Assouan, i far above here. on the banks of the Nile.
 It must have been brought down the river on a. barge and carried to this place. 1 When it was on the ground 1t had to be lowered down into the vault, and that without modern machinery. As l went i through the tombs l saw several such caskets, and the archeologist who guild ed me showed me the holes in the stone walls of the entrance ways where beams had been put across in order that ropes
 might be used to prevent these stone masses sliding too far when let down. It Is a difficult job for us to handle iron safes of even four-feet cube. One of these stone boxes would weigh as much as
 several such safes and the old Egyp-
 tians carried them where they pleased.
 With Pharaoh's Engineers.
 Indeed, I venture the civil engineers
 of the Pharaohs could teach our people
 much. All about this region there are
 enormous monuments which 1t would
 puzzle the engineers of today to handle. i Take the Colossi of Memnon. the two i mighty stone figures in the Nile valley l within a few miles of where l am now i writing. Each is as high as a six-story
 house, and the stone pedestals upon
 which they sit rise thirteen feet above
 the ground. rode by them as I came i home from the valley of the kings, and 1 climbed up and ran the tape measure | over their legs. The legs measure 19 l feet from sole to knee. The feet are