e the ceaseless
thirst of the soldiery by the manufacture of a kind of native beer.
Foundries and workshops began, though slowly, to supply tools and
machines; the earth was rifled of her treasures, natron was wrought,
saltpetre works were established, and gunpowder was thereby procured
for the army with an energy which recalled the prodigies of activity
of 1793.

With his usual ardour in the cause of learning, Bonaparte several
times a week appeared in the chemical laboratory, or witnessed the
experiments performed by Berthollet and Monge. Desirous of giving
cohesion to the efforts of his _savants_, and of honouring not only
the useful arts but abstruse research, he united these pioneers of
science in a society termed the Institute of Egypt. On August 23rd,
1798, it was installed with much ceremony in the palace of one of the
Beys, Monge being president and Bonaparte vice-president. The general
also enrolled himself in the mathematical section of the institute.
Indeed, he sought by all possible means to aid the labours of the
_savants_, whose dissertations were now heard in the large hall of the
harem that formerly resounded only to the twanging of lutes, weary
jests, and idle laughter. The labours of the _savants_ were not
confined to Cairo and the Delta. As soon as the victories of Desaix
in Upper Egypt opened the middle reaches of the Nile to peaceful
research, the treasures of Memphis were revealed to the astonished
gaze of western learning. Many of the more portable relics were
transferred to Cairo, and thence to Rosetta or Alexandria, in order to
grace the museums of Paris. The _savants_ proposed, but sea-power
disposed, of these treasures. They are now, with few exceptions, in
the British Museum.

Apart from archaeology, much was done to extend the bounds of learning.
Astronomy gained much by the observations of General Caffarelli. A
series of measurements was begun for an exact survey of Egypt: the
geologists and engineers examined the course of the Nile, recorded the
progress of alluvial deposits at its mouth or on its banks, and
therefrom calculated the antiquity of divers parts of the Delta. No
part of the great conqueror's career so aptly illustrates the truth of
his noble words to the magistrates of the Ligurian Republic: "The true
conquests, the only conquests which cost no regrets, are those
achieved over ignorance."

Such, in brief outline, is the story of the renascence in Egypt. The
mother-land o