114 PROCEEDINGS OF THE REGENTS. 



Institution. The grammar and dictionary of the Yoruba language, 

 by Mr. Bowen, have especially interested me. 



Expressing my thanks to the honorable directors, I have the pleasure 

 to send some of my latest publications, with the request that they be 

 , placed in the Smithsonian library. They are the following : 



1. Two volumes of my "Konigsbuch," containing the chronological 

 restitution of the Egyptian dynasties of Manethon, and the collection 

 of the hieroglyphical names of all the kings ; being, as it were, a sup- 

 plement to the great work "On the Monuments of Egypt and Ethi- 

 opia," prepared by myself at the expense of the State, a copy of which 

 the King, at my suggestion, has presented to the Smithsonian Library. 

 Of this you have lately received the last series of plates, and the de- 

 scriptive text will be sent as soon as I can finish it. 



2. A dissertation, read at our Academy of Sciences, on the "Extent 

 of the Egyptian History after Manethon." 



3. Another similar one on several points of "Chronology." 



4. A volume of thirty-seven plates, representing the pictures exe- 

 cuted, under my direction, upon the walls of the Egyptian Museum, 

 in Berlin. 



To these I add some pamphlets relating to the introduction of a 

 general linguistic or standard alphabet for expressing foreign lan- 

 guages, which have either not been written at all or not in European 

 characters. They are, for the present : 



5. An English copy of the pamphlet I have published on the stand- 

 ard alphabet. 



6. A German copy of the same. 



7. Translation, by Mr. Lechler, of the Gospel of St. Matthew into 

 Chinese, in the characters of the standard alphabet. 



8. Translation, by myself, of the Gospel of St. Mark, into the Nubian 

 language ; printed in types of the standard alphabet. This forms part 

 of a book which also contains the grammar and dictionary of the Nu- 

 bian and several other similar languages, the printing of which is 

 not yet finished. 



The two copies of the standard alphabet are of the first edition. We 

 are just now printing the second, with some slight alterations and 

 a, much more complete collection of alphabets. I shall send it in time, 

 and would not, at present, have transmitted the first edition, the small 

 number of copies of which has actually been withdrawn, if it were not 

 of special interest for a library to follow up the gradual development 

 of a subject of general importance. 



You w T ill see from the pamphlet that most of the missionary societies 

 have decided to introduce the alphabet, the American Board of Com- 

 missioners for Foreign Missions included, and that the number of books 

 printed in these characters is rapidly augmenting. I know of sixty 

 or more. I do not know whether you have any opportunity of 

 exercising an influence among the savans of your country in favor 

 of the adoption of the standard alphabet. At any rate you will 

 allow me to recommend such a course. Mr. Bowen, from his Yoruba 

 grammar, seems not to have had any knowledge of it; while Mr. 

 Crouther, his learned predecessor in the grammar of this language, 

 has already adopted it in his later publications; and Mr. L. Grout. 



