19.) It was based on an universal
tradition that under "an immense ocean," in "the far west," there was an
"under-world," a world comprising millions of the dead, a mighty race,
that had been suddenly swallowed up in the greatest catastrophe known to
man since he had inhabited the globe.
10. There is no evidence that the civilization of Egypt was developed in
Egypt itself; it must have been transported there from some other
country. To use the words of a recent writer in Blackwood,
"Till lately it was believed that the use of the papyrus for writing was
introduced about the time of Alexander the Great; then Lepsius found the
hieroglyphic sign of the papyrus-roll on monuments of the twelfth
dynasty; afterward he found the same sign on monuments of the fourth
dynasty, which is getting back pretty close to Menes, the protomonarch;
and, indeed, little doubt is entertained that the art of writing on
papyrus was understood as early as the days of Menes himself. The fruits
of investigation in this, as in many other subjects, are truly most
marvellous. Instead of exhibiting the rise and progress of any branches
of knowledge, they tend to prove that nothing had any rise or progress,
but that everything is referable to the very earliest dates.
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