Indian petition, addressed to the President of the United States, to obtain possession of four small lakes (8), of which the superfluous water flows into a large one (10), the Lake Superior. No. 1 represents Oshcabawis, the chief of the petitioning tribe, whose clan is symbolised by the stork. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 represent the symbols or totems of the other petitioners (marten, bear, tortoise, sea-cat, &c.). The eyes of the petitioners are connected with the eyes of the chief to express the unity of their views, their hearts to his heart to show the unity of their feelings. Lastly, a special line connects the head of the chief with the lakes they reclaim. The wavy line starting from the stork's head represents the idea of the request preferred to the President.

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pictorial origin. Aleph, and beth, which are joined to make the word alphabet, had, the one, the form of an ox's head, the other, that of a tent or house; gimel, the gamma of the Greeks, represented a camel, daleth or delta a door.1

The first form of picture writing is merely the representation of the living creatures or inanimate objects, a tree, a stream, a lion. This is picture-writing proper, of which we here reproduce two specimens. The one is a contemporary Indian petition (fig. 140); the other an Indian love song, for which we are indebted to School

FIG. 141. EXAMPLE OF PICTURE WRITING.-LOVE SONG.

1. The lover standing. 2. The same seated, playing on the magic drum. 3. The lover shut into a secret hut by his magic art. 4. The pair holding hands. 5. The woman represented in an island. 6. She lies asleep, her lover addresses her, and his magic power touches her heart. 7. His heart. 8. Represents her maidenhood. A line corresponds to each figure except the last. Here is the translation: my artistic talent makes me a god; listen to the sound of my voice, of my song, it is indeed my voice; I hide my head when seated near her; I can make her blush since I hear all she says of me; were she in a far distant isle I could reach her by swimming, even if she were in another hemisphere. I speak to your heart.

craft (fig. 141). This species of writing is naturally followed by pure symbolism, which consists in expressing abstract ideas by figures which suggest them in the mind of another-a bird signifying rapidity; a fox, cunning; a serpent holding its tail in its mouth, eternity; a sceptre, power. From this to phonetic writing there is but a step, but it is a long one. Here the image or symbol be

In astronomy we still use hieroglyphics to indicate the signs of the zodiac: r = the Ram, x = the Bull, II = the Twins, f = the Archer, ✅= the Scales, Aquarius. Horizontal undulating lines are the sign which represents water in the Egyptian hieroglyphics.

=

comes a sound. This is the rebus, which is really only a transition by the ideographic and phonetic forms.

The savages of America furnish a number of examples of these different kinds of writing, and Tylor cites some very striking ones in his Early History of Mankind.' The development of writing was arrested in China at the syllabic form; it has not reached the alphabetical. The characters, considerably modified by time and the use of the pencil, of which this writing is composed, are divided into two classes: (1) the phonetic, which give the sound; (2) the determinative, which indicate the sense. Thus the sign door, accompanied by the determinative ear, means to listen. The same sign door, joined to the determinative heart, expresses the word sorrow. The Chinese characters, which are purely syllabic, may be used with equal facility in Cochin China, Japan, and the peninsula of Corea, and to each it is possible to attach words which express the same idea, but which are mutually unintelligible to the people who employ them. Arab and Roman figures give an idea of this kind of writing; they resemble it inasmuch as the notions they represent are the same throughout the civilised world, but the word by which. they are expressed varies with the nationality. The signs X and 10, for instance, represent everywhere the number which we call ten, but the enunciation of this number differs sensibly in different countries: déka (Greek), decem (Latin), zehn (German), dieci (Italian), dix (French).

The hieroglyphic writing of the Egyptians is much more learned but less complicated than that of the Aztecs, as is proved by a comparison of the tablets of Palenqué with the inscriptions at Rosetta or on the Obelisks. The characters employed in the Mexican inscriptions appear to have been formed of an assemblage of portions of symbols originally used in their integrity. The people who made use of this writing appear to have been inspired with the polysynthetic principle, the distinctive character of the American tongues, agglutination, compound or bunch-words as the Americans say. But it is doubtful if the hieroglyphs of Palenqué, of which the

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signification is as yet unknown, ever had a phonetic value like those of the Egyptians and of the Chinese.1

It will be seen that hieroglyphic writing in general use among peoples widely separated by time and space, the Egyptians, Chinese, and American Indians, has everywhere an essentially pictorial character. No remains of writing have up to the present time been found in the places where the bones of quaternary man are found buried. Dr. Garrigou nevertheless says that he observed a species of hieroglyphic signs on several fragments of reindeer horn, which he collected in the caves of La Vache and of Massat, in Ariège. The author of this discovery is perhaps too ready to see in these the first traces of writing in our hands. It is also extremely doubtful whether the signs traced upon the slabs of sandstone found at Chaleux, mentioned by Professor van Beneden, should be regarded as graphic characters. Admitting that in the two above-mentioned cases we are really dealing with hieroglyphs, what is their signification? It may perhaps be found at some future time. "When Grotefend, the first to undertake to decipher the signs found upon the Assyrian monuments, began his task, it was unknown whether they really constituted a written character, of if they were merely ornaments; not a word of the language to which they presumably belonged was known; we were ignorant from what epoch they dated. Neither was it known whether the alphabet was phonetic, syllabic, or hieroglyphic. Now at the present day we are acquainted with the cuneiform inscriptions of Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes I., &c. We are provided with translations, grammars, and dictionaries of them.' (F. Garrigou, L'Âge du Renne dans la Grotte de la Vache, près de Tarascon [Ariège],' p. 5.)

1 A few examples are however cited, which tend to prove that, at the time of the conquest, the Mexicans were in process of giving a phonetic value to their hieroglyphs. The name of Itzli-coatl, for instance, the fourth king of Mexico, is represented by a serpent (coatl), from the spine of which obsidian knives (itzli) protrude; whence Itzlicoatl, like our rebus. (See Tylor, Early History of Mankind, and Evans, Revue Scientifique, 1873, p. 657.)

15

Archæology has not said its last word on the subject of records of prehistoric ages. According to Grote, writing was unknown in the time of Homer and Hesiod (850-776 B.C.) Now the excavations made at great expense by Schliemann on the site of ancient Troy have brought to light an earthenware vessel, made without the help of the potter's wheel, and bearing an inscription probably in Trojan characters. Homer sang of the fall of Troy about seven hundred years after the taking of the town. We must therefore conclude, in spite of Grote's assertion to the contrary, that writing existed in Illyria long before Homer. We must not forget, however, that Sir John Evans, a most competent authority, affirms that writing was unknown in the age of stone, and that no well-established fact has yet been discovered in support of the contrary opinion.