"Who can read the history of the past? Who is there who can tell
the story of creation's morn? It is not written in history,
neither does it live in tradition. There is mystery here, but it
is hid by the darkness of bygone ages."

"There is a true history here, but we have not learned well the
alphabet used. Here are doubtless wondrous scenes, but our
standpoint is removed by time so vast that only the rude
outlines can be determined. The delicate tracery, the body of
the picture, are hidden from our eye. The question as to the
antiquity and primitive history of man is full of interest in
proportion as the solution is set with difficulties. We question
the past, but only here and there a response is heard. Surely
bold is he who would attempt, from the few data at hand, to
reconstruct the history of times and people so far removed. We
quickly become convinced that many centuries and tens of
centuries have rolled away since man's first appearance on the
earth. We become impressed with the fact that multitudes of
people have moved over the surface of the earth and sunk into
the night of oblivion without leaving a trace of their
existence, without a memorial through which we might have at
least learned their names."

"In Egypt we find the seat of an ancient civilization which was
in its power many centuries before Christ. The changes that have
passed over the earth are far more wonderful than any ascribed
to the wand of the magician. Nations have come and gone, and the
land of the Pharaohs has become an inheritance for strangers;
new sciences have enriched human life, and the fair structure
has arisen on the ruins of the past. Many centuries, with their