26 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



manuscripts in similar characters which have escaped the destructive 

 fanaticism of Spanish priests, namely, the Dresden Codex, the Codex 

 Peresianus and the Codex Troano, yet the results have thus far not 

 justified the high expectations at first entertained. 



The author endeavors to show, by an analytical process, the affinity 

 between Bishop Landa's characters and the glyphs on the Palenquean 

 tablets, to which he consequently ascribes a Maya origin. He thinks 

 it probable that the Yucatecs employed in their writing certain charac- 

 ters as equivalents for sounds, perhaps syllabic and at the same time, 

 possibly to a great extent, conventional figures imparting a definite 

 meaning. On the other hand, he strongly doubts whether the Mayas 

 and kindred tribes ever went so far as to express the elementary signs 

 of their speech by corresponding signs; in short, whether they possessed 

 a written language in the modern sense. He hardly believes that the 

 meaning of Central American and Yucatec glyphs will ever be revealed 

 through Landa's key, which, if it really was what the bishop claims, 

 would apply to the Maya as spoken at the time of the conquest, but, 

 owing to the mutability of languages, not to the earlier kindred vernac- 

 ular of the builders of Palenque and other now ruined cities of the 

 same regions. 



The appendix relates to the ruins of Yucatan and Central America 

 and forms a complement to the chief topics of the publication. 



The twenty-third volume of Contributions will probably contain : 



1. Lucernarire. H. J. Clark. 



2. Geology of Louisiana. E. W. Hilgard. 



3. Internal Structure of the Earth. J. G. Barnard. 



4. Monograph of the Trochilidre. D. G-. Elliot. 



5. Fever, a Study in Morbid and Normal Physiology. H. C. Wood, jr. 



Miscellaneous Collections. — Several volumes of Miscellaneous Collec- 

 tions will be pnbbshed in a few months, the articles composing them 

 having already been printed and stereotyped. 



Volume XVI of this series will contain : 



1. Monograph of Strepoinatidre. G. W. Tryon. 



2. Catalogue of Hiptera. K. Osteu-Sacken. 



3. Toner lecture: Nature of Preparatory I uilammation in Arteries after 

 Ligature. E. O. Shakespeare. 



4. Circular relative to Smithsonian Literary and Scientific Exchanges. 



5. Circular relative to Business Arrangements of the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution. 



6. List of Humming Birds. I). G. Elliot. 



7. List of the Principal Libraries in the United States. 



8. Check list of Smithsonian Publications to July, 1879. 



