I only trust that in our ignorance we may not so bungle things as to do harm to its mechanism; and so deprive the knowledge of our time of a lesson handed down, as by a miracle, through nearly five thousand years.
"In another way, too, there may be hidden in that box secrets which, for good or ill, may enlighten the world.

We know from their records, and inferentially also, that the Egyptians studied the properties of herbs and minerals for magic purposes--white magic as well as black.
We know that some of the wizards of old could induce from sleep dreams of any given kind.

That this purpose was mainly effected by hypnotism, which was another art or science of Old Nile, I have little doubt.

But still, they must have had a mastery of drugs that is far beyond anything we know.

With our own pharmacopoeia we can, to a certain extent, induce dreams.