TALBOT6441

Berlin July 21^st 1851

My Dear Constance

I reached Berlin at ten oclock this morning - The weather is extraordinarily hot but the evenings are in consequence very pleasant - I think North germany professes a hotter and drier summer than England as it certainly does a far colder winter - I can scarcely recognize the city which I saw once before buried in snow - I have procured better information now respecting road distances &c and therefore wish to make a change in the list I gave you of places where I might be written to -

Please to omit Alexisbad and insert Cassel (Hesse-Cassel, German) with the same date of August 7 I hope you received a note I wrote at Hanover.

I have just been to see Professor Lepsius and found him in good health - He is occupied with a great work displaying his discoveries in Egypt, it will contain 300 plates - He is to show me the Egyptian Scarabrius, covered with heiroglyphics but these when deciphered according to the usual rules give the meaning of "Frederick William the fourth, Kind of Prussia" - He had manufactured it himself in Egypt & told me that it was now quite necessary for antiquarians to be on their guard against spurious Egyptian antiquities - He said a person he met at Thebes had discovered the ruins of the house of an ancient Egyptian maker of scarabri, and poking over the place he had found all the materials and tools that were used in the art; from which he taught himself how to make them, and then taught Lepsius.

Your aff^te
Henry