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found a number of interesting birds; I have observed their habits, described them zoologically and anatomically, stuffed them and mounted their skeletons.” 7 Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire would also initiate a project for the study and classification of the fish in the Nile, whose different species would be expertly drawn and colored by the flower-painter Redouté, whom Monge and Berthollet had had the foresight to recruit as a savant. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s work in assembling these collections, and the insights that they enabled him to gain into different species, would allow him to correct certain mistakes made by Linnaeus, the great Swedish naturalist and founder of biological classification. He would also undertake a study of ibises, comparing his modern specimens with those which had been mummified by the ancient Egyptians; his findings here would assist the great French biologist Lamarck in his pioneering theory of evolution.
    Other savants at Rosetta were similarly industrious, even if they did not produce quite such groundbreaking results. The engineer Jollois busied himself hiking along the coast with his shotgun, shooting any seabirds he could find, and bringing back the remains to add to Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s collection. Meanwhile others studied the many ruins in the district, which were deemed to be mainly attempts at ancient pyramids, dating from an early pharaonic dynasty, while the ubiquitous Denon continued sketching birds, flowers, buildings and even the ruins (enabling them to be correctly identified at a later date as the remains of centuries-old Mameluke fortifications).
    Menou was only too pleased to have such men working at Rosetta, and would enjoy listening to their intellectual conversation after dinner at his headquarters. Sadly for him, almost all his savants would soon be summoned to Cairo, where they would become involved in the various projects started by the Institute.
    One of the first papers to be read out at the regular meetings of the Institute was Monge’s “Explanation of the Optical Phenomenon Called a Mirage.” A simplified version of this paper would be circulated throughout the French army in Lower Egypt, so that this phenomenon could be explained to the soldiers, thus dissipating as far as possible the irrational fears the mirages had induced. Other talks ranged from Berthollet’s paper on “The Process Followed in Egypt for the Manufacture of Indigo,” to Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s “Observations on the Wing of the Ostrich.” Even a number of Napoleon’s senior officers soon became enthusiastically involved in the savants’ various projects; so much so that chief of staff Berthollet found time to dispatch to the Institute “one hundred birds’ mummies preserved and sealed in sandstone pots” 8 —the very find that would enable Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire to study the development over three millennia of the Egyptian ibis.
    All manner of new science was soon being introduced to Egypt. A leading light in this enterprise was chief medical officer Desgenettes, who organized the printing of manuals in French and Egyptian outlining treatment for smallpox and bubonic plague. He also sent a circular letter to all medical officers attached to the French army, reminding them that Egypt had been one of the birthplaces of medicine, and that elements of this early medicine probably survived in contemporary Egyptian medical practice. They were to record any instances of this they came across, partly for the benefit of medical history, and partly in case some of these timeless practices forgotten by European medicine remained efficacious. Desgenettes also set in process the daily recording of deaths in Cairo, with these classified under separate columns for men, women and children, listing where possible the cause. The tables would later be used to monitor the rise and fall of contagious diseases in the city, as well as to compare seasonal and annual variations. This was the first use in