inscriptions upon them; on one there is an invocation to the goddess of writing.  Fragments of one or two colours, with the palm-leaf baskets in which they were deposited are also in this case; together with stands with small colour vases; slabs with colour jars; mullets for grinding, a basket with paint-brushes made of palm-fibres; and upon a thin piece of cedar wood is a portrait of an Egyptian female of the Greek period.  Amidst other minute objects lie Egyptian folding wax tablets for writing; a cylindrical ink-box, with a chain attached to hold the pen case; seals of various kinds with impressions of bulls, jackals, and hieroglyphics; portion of a calendar on stone; and fragments of Egyptian writing on stone, and chiefly from tombs.  These fragments illustrative of the Egyptian character are continued in the first two divisions of the cases marked 40, 41, including a panel and stud from an ebony box inscribed with the titles of Amenophis III. and his daughter; and a fragment in ebony, with an inscribed dedication to Anubis.  Among the miscellaneous objects also in these divisions are various boxes in wood, papyrus, one veneered with white and red ivory, some inscribed with names; and one with a pyramidal cover, veneered with ivory and ornamented with figures and birds.  The next or third division is filled with varieties of Egyptian spoons.  Some of these are curious.  They are chiefly of wood; but some are of ivory.  Among them are wooden spoons, shovel, egg and cartouche-shaped; one with the handle carved in the shape of lotus flowers; one with a moveable cover from Memphis; one with the handle representing a gazelle, and within fish demolishing a water plant, from Thebes; one in the shape of a fish; one circular, with a lotus handle and a hawk cynocephalus on its edge; one with the form of a fish for a bowl, and a fox seizing the fish for a handle; and others equally curious in point of design.  The last, or fourth division of the case is full of ancient Egyptian building materials, including fragments of painted plaster; stamps for bricks; palm-fibre brushes for colouring walls, and smoothing tools.

EGYPTIAN TOOLS

are disposed through the two cases (42, 43) which the visitor should now examine.  In the first division are some palm-leaf baskets; wooden mallets, one found in the masonry of the great pyramid at Abooseir; and staves; in the second division a large variety of curious tools is exhibited, including Egyptian saws, bradawls, chisels, an adze, axe blades, knives of bronze, generally inscribed with hieroglyphics, hones, bronze nails; mysterious bronze tools, the use of which is unknown, all interesting to those who are in any way interested in the history of the wonderful people who inhabited the valley of the Nile, and wielded these tools there, when our island was an untilled desert.  The third division of the case contains strange handles decorated with the popular lotus flower,