76 The Rev. Dr. Wall on the Nature, Age, and Origin of the 



After each series, above exhibited, of syllabic signs formed by variations of a 

 common letter and called by a common name, is subjoined in the same line the 

 corresponding Hebrew letter v?ith its name, to show the connexion which in 

 many instances obviously holds between those words. The period when this 

 alphabet was derived from the Hebrew or some other Shemitic syllabary is lost 

 in impenetrable obscurity ; but whenever it was that the primary formation of 

 the system took place, it must at that time have consisted solely of its first column 

 of characters ; the remaining columns could not have been added till after the 

 Abyssinian had, in his conception of the subject, arrived at a distinct classification 

 of the vocal elements of his syllables. The different pointings that are placed 

 under the consonantal parts of tlie guttural powers, are intended merely to inti- 

 mate that those powers differ from each other, though what is peculiar to each is 

 now no longer known. 



I have not marked the quantity of the powers in all the columns of the 

 above table ; as there is some difference in this respect between Bishop Walton's 



