collected generation after generation by the Egyptian Ptolemies became, in the course of time, the most extensive ever then known; and were famous throughout the world for the costliness of their ornamentation, and importance of their untold contents.

Two of these were at Alexandria, the larger of which was in the quarter called Bruchium.

These volumes, like all manuscripts of those early ages, were written on sheets of parchment, having a wooden roller at each end so that the reader needed only to unroll a portion at a time.

During Caesar's Alexandrian War, B.C.48, the larger collection was consumed by fire and again burnt by the Saracens in A.D.640.

An immense loss was inflicted upon mankind thereby; but when we are told of 700,000, or even 500,000 of such volumes being destroyed we instinctively feel that such numbers must be a great exaggeration.