in the shape of a Lamb, and thus bearing the name of a Kesitah.

Our drawing, which is from Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, represents a man in the act of weighing a number of rings, or pieces of money, against a weight in the form of a lamb. It thus gives great probability to the opinion of the

above mentioned interpreters.

In our

What was the weight of a Kesitah is unknown. The largest Hebrew weight was a Kikar, or circle, translated, a Talent, weighing about one hundred-weight (See Note on Ezekiel, xlv. 12). drawing the Kesitah, or Lamb, weighs three rings, or circles. But this will give us no key to its weight, because a Circle of gold weighed probably much less than a Circle of silver, and that again, less than a Circle of copper, the Circle of commerce, which last only, is known to be a hundredweight.

GENESIS, XLI. 2.

"And, behold, there came up out of the river seven well favoured kine and fat-fleshed; and they fed in a meadow."

From Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians.

The Buffaloes in Egypt during the warm weather live very much in the water, as seen in this

probably the animals meant by the writer.

view, and are Their milk and

flesh are used for food; but they are too restless and untameable to be useful in the plough. Thus, in the Book of Job (xxxix. 10), the Almighty asks,—

"Canst thou bind the Buffalo by his band in the furrow? Or will he harrow the valleys after thee?"

The Buffalo, called in the authorised version the Unicorn, is often used in the Bible as a figurative name for Egypt; as in Ps. xxii. 21,

"Thou savedst me from the mouth of the Lion [or Assyria], and didst answer me from the horns of the Buffaloes [or Egyptians]."

Again, in Num. xxiv. 8,

"God brought him forth out of Egypt; he was to him as the strength of the Buffalo."

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GENESIS, XLI. 5.

"And he slept and dreamed the second time; and, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good."

The plant dreamt of was perhaps the Triticum compositum, or compound wheat, the species usually grown in Egypt at the present day. It bears on a stalk not several ears, but an ear branching into several spikes. wheat are often found within the bandages of the mummies. Grains of It was customary with the Egyptians to place them with the dead body of a man, so that when he came to life again he might have seed wherewith to sow his fields in the next These grains of mummy wheat, when planted, after having been buried for 2,000 years, have been known to sprout, and prove themselves of this species.

world.

GENESIS, XLI. 42.

"And Pharaoh took off his [signet] ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand."

"

Two Egyptian signet rings in the British Museum. On the face of one is engraved the name Menhophra, the first name of King Thothmosis III., who probably lived about B.C. 1320, perhaps 100 years after the time of Joseph. The comb is Men, the beetle is Ho, and the ball is Ra, or with the article Phra, or together Men-ho-phra. The back of the other signet is formed like a Scarabæus, or sacred beetle. These engraved signets are also mentioned in Exodus, xxviii. 11, and xxxix. 6.

The Pharaoh of our text, like that mentioned in the life of Abraham, must be supposed to have been a king, not of all Egypt, but possibly of only a part of Lower Egypt.

GENESIS, XLI. 42.

"And [Pharaoh] arrayed him [Joseph] in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck."

The Egyptian governor of a conquered province being invested with a gold chain, the badge of his office, in the presence of King Rameses II. On the sculpture in the

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Temple of Beit-e-Wellee in Nubia. From a cast in the British Museum.

The governor holds up his hands in the attitude of prayer and praise to the King, before whom he is standing. He wears bracelets round his wrists, and sandals, or shoes; the servants are bare-footed. The servants have their heads shaven, perhaps because they are of the priestly order. We thus see the shape of the skull, which is longer from the chin to the back of the head than the European skull. Such is the skull of the colossal sphinx near Memphis, and such is now the skull of the inhabitants of the banks of the Nile. The statues of the Theban kings, have not the same shaped skull. Those kings seem to have been foreigners, perhaps from Tartary, who at some very early period, made themselves masters of Egypt.