676 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 



permission to dig, and at the close of the year the party proceeded 

 southward to Niffer. It is likely that work will be continued during the 

 coining j^ear.* 



The American Oriental Society, at its meeting in Philadelphia, took 

 a step which may lead to important results. A resolution was adopted 

 and a committee appointed to obtain information and make a report in 

 May, 1889, on the feasibility and utility of the preparation of a catalogue 

 of oriental manuscripts in America. Such*a catalogue, if it could be 

 made complete, would be of the greatest service to American oriental 

 scholars, whose chief drawback lies in the fact that their materials for 

 work are scattered over the entire country. 



The University of Pennsylvania has acquired a collection of cuneiform 

 originals (briefly described by Dr. Kobert F. Harper in Hebraica, Vol. 

 V, pp. 74:-76), and also a collection of casts of Assyrian objects in the 

 British Museum. 



The National Museum is steadily pursuing its policy of collecting 

 copies of Assyrian and Babylonian objects preserved in this country. 

 An exhibit of specimens in the field of Biblical Archaeology was 

 set up in the Government exhibit at the (Jeutennial Exposition of 

 the Ohio Valley held at Cincinnati. An interesting collection of casts 

 of Assyrian and Egyptian objects has been received from the Berlin 

 Museum and a working oriental library is being collected in (he Smith- 

 sonian Institution for the use of the oriental section, and of oriental 

 scholars visiting Washington. 



Possibly the first German journal in the field of oriental philology, 

 to be published with the aid of an American learned body is the Beitrdge 

 ziir Assyriologie und Vergleicheudcn Semitischen Sprachwissenscliaft, which 

 will appear mit UnterstUtzungder Johns Hopkins JJniversitat zn Baltimore, 

 edited by Prof. Friedrich Delitzsch, of Leipzig, and Prof. Paul Haupt, of 

 Baltimore. 



American scholars have contributed to most of the important journals 

 in the field of oriental science published abroad, and a number of for- 

 eign scholars, among whom may be mentioned Canon Cheyne, of Ox- 

 ford, Prof. G. Maspero, Mr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, Mr. Theo. G. Pinches 

 of the British Museum, Prof. George Rawlinson, Prof. A. H. Sayce of 

 Queens College, Oxford, Dr. Hugo Wiuckler, of Berlin, and the late 

 Prof. William Wright, of Cambridge, have sent contributions to Ameri- 

 can journals. 



The range of topics covered by American orientalists comprises : As- 

 syro-Babylonian language, art, history, and religion; Armenia; Budd- 

 hism and Sanskrit; China; Cyprus; Egypt; Hittites; Japan; Jews 

 and Judaism (so far as they bear on the history of the orient); modern 

 oriental languages; Mohammedanism and Arabic ; Old Testament and 

 Hebrew ; Pedagogics ; Persia ; Samaritan ; Siam ; Semitic Philology ; 

 Syriac. 



'Compare Philadelphia Ledyer, J nne 14, 168S; Mw YorH J^V^ning Fqstj Jv^w '42, 

 1888 ; New York Indej)end^nt, June g8, l§8d. 



