Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1800 edition. Excerpt: .... ', / MEMOIR i, )-., .'... v. Relative to: the Lake Menzaleh, hr consequence.of, the Knowledge obtained, in FendemairthiYfari By Andreossy, General of Artillery'. EGYPT has Keen the cradle of the arts and sciences. Their principles were either collected by the colleges of priests, or confided to those hieroglyphics, the language of which is no longer known. The Egyptian priests, occupied in an especial mariner with observing tne heavenly bodies, paid but little attention to the natural facts that occurred before their own eyes: thus when Herodotus was at Memphis, he perceived, while conversing with the priests, that they were unacquainted with the causes of those changes that had occurred in. the lower parts of their country, comprehending that space between the entrance of the plain and the sea. It is a remarkable circumstance, that at the epoch when this father of history travelled through Egypt, it had but just emerged from a long war, during which every thing appertaining to public economy was neglected; the canals had had consequently experienced its difastrous es sects. In addition to this, . the inhabitants still groaned beneath a military government similar to that of the Mamelukes, and the lands in the neighbourhood of the desert were then, as now, infested by robbers.. Herodotus accordingly found Egypt in nearly the fame state as it has been ever since, and consequently was not able either to ascertain or collect a great number os facts 5 those contained in his Euterpe are precious, but he leaves us in an uncertainty respecting a great many othersStrabo and Diodorus Siculus, ' have added but little to the narrative of Herodotus..Aboulfedha, by making us acquainted with the geography of his time, and the other writers of the.
