288 TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



Sometimes two, three and four determinatives were necessary 

 for fixing the meaning of a group. Ak followed by two altars, 

 signifies stove. For expressing the word OTrtoq, pulmo,the Egyp- 

 tians added four determinatives, viz. clew, lion's claw, hill, track ; 

 and of the very same composition are several thousand of the arti- 

 cles to be found in this wonderful Dictionary, although B. was in- 

 formed that the Egyptians never used ideologic hieroglyphs. More- 

 over, he discovered that the same word was determinated by very 

 different appendices ; e.g. the word "plantare" by a tooth, or a 

 fence, or a horn, or two threshing-floors. B's sparrow is the deter- 

 minative for the following conceptions, " dolor, percussit, nullus, 

 puer, fallere," probably because they were altogether related with 

 the sparrow. The same Cht. discovered that the determinatives 

 stood sometimes in the midst of the groups. Besides, in case all 

 these artifices were not sufficient in translating certain groups, B. 

 had recourse to easier ones. He impressed upon the reader that 

 many hieroglyphic groups contain mere expletive signs, hierogly- 

 phica quiescenlia, i.e. unutterable ones, e.g. the palm-tree, or he 

 copulated the last letter of the preceding word with the follow- 

 ing, or he altered the given consecution of the hieroglyphs, or he 

 referred, notwithstanding the system of Ch., hieroglyphic groups 

 to Hebrew roots, or he transformed hieroglyphic figures into new 

 ones. B's Dictionary contains a great many of altered hiero- 

 glyphs. Now, if such proceedings are not foolishness and decep- 

 tion, no fool and cheat exists in the world. 



S. Finally, what is to be done in order to put an end to the 

 present Egyptian humbug, and to protect the public from further 

 impositions of this kind? Remembering that since the publica- 

 tion of Ch's hieroglyphic system in 1824, based upon erroneous 

 principles, a deluge of books following the very same principles 

 has overflowed the scientific world ; that the Chts. have intro- 

 duced a totally wrong history of Egypt ; that they, during a period 

 of 57 years, have not yet furnished a grammatical exposition of one 

 entire Egyptian text ; that a polygrapher who is not at all, either 

 morally or intellectually, qualified to promote this new depart- 

 ment of ancient philology, whose works scarcely contain one 

 word of truth, is the ignis fatuus which seduced the present gene- 

 ration into an abominable bog ; — remembering these facts, I say, 

 every honest man will long to see, finally, the truth triumph- 



