day of rapid results is at an
end, and the monotonous time of special studies has begun. Hence I would
beg the Academy not to expect sensational discoveries from their new
associate. I can only offer what _labor improbus_ brings to light, and
that is _small_ discoveries; yet in the process of time they will
lead us to those very ends which seemed so nearly attainable to our
predecessors."

The German school may perhaps be said to have devoted its time
especially to labours upon Egyptian grammar and philology, while the
French school is better known for its excellent work on the history
and archaeology of ancient Egypt. On these topics the leading authority
among all the scholars of to-day is the eminent Frenchman, Professor
Gaston C. C. Maspero, author of the first nine volumes of the present
work. He was born at Paris, June 24,1846. He is a member of the French
Institute, and was formerly Professor of Egyptian Archeology and
Ethnology in the College de France, and, more recently, Director of
the Egyptian Museum at Bulak. His writings cover the entire field
of Oriental antiquity. In this field Maspero has no peer among
Egyptologists of the present or the past. He possesses an eminent gift
of style, and his works afford a rare combination of the qualities of
authority, scientific accuracy, and of popular readableness.

Some extraordinary treasures from tombs were discovered in the year
1881. At that date Arabs often hawked about in the streets what
purported to be genuine works of antiquity. Many of these were in
reality imitations; but Professor Maspero in this year secured from an
Arab a funeral papyrus of Phtahhotpu I., and after considerable trouble
he was able to locate the tomb in Thebes from which the treasure had
been taken. Brugsch now excavated the cave, which was found to be the
place where a quantity of valuable treasures had been secreted, probably
at the time of the sacking of Thebes by the Assyrians. Six thousand
objects were secured, and they included twenty-nine mummies of kings,
queens, princes, and high priests, and five papyri, among which was
the funeral papyrus of Queen Makeru of the twentieth dynasty. The
mummy-cases had been opened by the Arabs, who had taken out the mummies
and in some instances replaced the wrong ones. Many mummies of the
eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties had been removed to this cave
probably for safety, on account of its secrecy. Out of the twenty-nine
mummies found here,