Chase.] J'^g [March. 



tooth, — are represented in the Chinese hieroglyphics, under a grada- 

 tion of forms, some of which agree with common forms of the corre- 

 sponding alphabetic letters. 



q. The hand was a prominent hieroglyph with the Egyptians as 

 well as with the Chinese, and in each language it appears to have 

 been employed in some form to represent the sounds of C, G, K, E, 

 andT. 



r. The most ancient alphabets exhibit either an entire absence or 

 a dearth of vowef sounds, and it seems probable that the characters 

 that subsequently became vocal were all at first consonantal. The 

 alphabet that was carried by the Pelasgi into Italy, probably about 

 1400 B. C. [See PI. I], contained only the vowels A, E, I; hence 

 it has been inferred that these were the oldest vowels. As their 

 forms may all be derived from Chinese characters signifying '^founda- 

 tion " or "support," the idea seems plausible that they were intro- 

 duced after the invention of other letters, as supports or foundations 

 for the sounds of the mute consonants. 



s. Many of the Egyptian and Chinese hieroglyphics exhibit a close 

 resemblance that appears to indicate a common origin. Instances of 

 this resemblance may be found in the Chinese Had. 8, Tow, denoting 

 "top," or "head;" Rad. 10, Jin, which is usually interpreted 

 "man;" Rad. 14, Meih, "a cover;" Rad. 17, Kan, "gaping;" 

 Rad. 75, Muh, "tree;" Rad. 102, Teen, "field;" Rad. 119, Me, 

 "rice." In nearly every case where both the Egyptian hieroglyphs 

 and the Chinese characters exhibit an alphabetic resemblance, the 

 Chinese resemblance appears to be the closer of the two. 



t. Some of the hieroglyphs would represent the same letter in 

 Egyptian and Chinese. Thus the Chinese Kan might be substituted 

 for an Egyptian K [PL I, fig. 10]; one of the Egyptian representa- 

 tives of M, resembles the Chinese Muh, "a tree" [PI. I, fig. 12, 

 No. 1], or Me, "rice" [PI. I, fig. 12, Nos. 2, 3, 4]; the serpent L 

 of Egypt [PI. I, fig, 16], reminds one of the dragon Lung of China; 

 the ieafy Sh [PI. I, fig. 14, No. 2], and the star S, find marked 

 analogues in the Chinese Show [PI. I, fig. 14, No. 1], and Sing. In 

 one instance at least, two of the Egyptian forms for the letter M [PI. 

 I, fig. 12, Nos. 5, 6], seem to be accounted for by two forms of the 

 Chinese Rad. 119, Me, "rice." [Do., Nos. 3, 4.] 



u. If the supposed derivation of // and 6 from the image of the 

 sun (see Proceedings A. P. S., 1861, p. 8), is correct, an inte- 

 resting harmony is traceable in the Egyptian, Greek, and Chinese, 

 through the scarab^eus which represented the sun, and was also used 



