January, 1S45.] 193 



Tho Chairman read a letter from Mr. Richard K. Haight, 

 dated Paris, 6th November, 1844, acknowledging the receipt 

 of his notice of election as a Correspondent, and in reference 

 to M. Pauthier's work above mentioned. 



Dr. Morton also read the following extracts from a letter ad- 

 dressed to him as Vice President of the Academy, by Dr. 

 Richard Lepsius, the distinguished head of the Prussian sci- 

 entific commission in Egypt, dated Island of Philae, 15th 

 Sept., 1S44. 



" It will interest you, perhaps, to read the summary of the 

 communications made by me to Mr. John Pickering, of Boston, 

 President of the American Oriental Society of that city. They 

 give some of the results of our journey into Ethiopia, and espe- 

 cially in regard to the ancient population of Meroe, their lan- 

 guage, their descendants, and their relation to Egypt, — showing 

 that the Meroites were a people of a red complexion, and that 

 they spoke the language of the Bishariba ^Bisharrees ?] of the 

 present day, which is decidedly Caucasian, and very rich in gram- 

 matical forms, and important on account of the place it occupies 

 among the other Caucasian languages. 



But another remarkable fact which presented itself to us in 

 Ethiopia, may perhaps have a more immediate bearing on the ob- 

 ject of your Society. In the province of Butir-el-Hagar, at a 

 long day's journey above Wady-Halfa, and near the cataract of 

 Semneh, the Nile is contracted between high rocks which ap- 

 proach each other within a distance of three hundred and eighty 

 feet; and on these yet remain the foundations of two very ancient 

 fortresses, erected by the conqueror of the country, Sesourtasen 

 III, (Osortasen,) the fifth king of the twelfth dynasty, and not of 

 the XVIIth dynasty, as hitherto supposed. 



Upon the enormous blocks constituting these structures, as 

 well as upon the rocks themselves, I have found a series of 

 eighteen hieroglyphical inscriptions, of which thirteen belong to 

 the reign of the immediate successor of Osortasen, viz., Amen- 

 enha III, the Mosris of the Greeks, the same who built the pyra- 

 mids and excavated the lake of the Fayoum, as recently dis- 

 covered by M. Linant. The other five inscriptions belong to the 

 last king of the XHth Dynasty, Amenenha IV, and to the first two 



