ETHNOLOGY. 415 



superciliary ridges. No. 744, however, is less regularly and syiiiinetrically oval, 

 projects more in tlie super-ccipital region, and has a more recedent forehead. 

 The superciliary ridges are equally prominent in both skulls, but in the Kootenay 

 head they do not coalesce with the supra-orbital margins, as is the case in the 

 Smithsonian skull. In the Kootenay cranium the supra-orbital margins are dis- 

 tinct and well defined throughout their whole course, from the internal to the 

 external angular processes. In the Smitlisonian head, as we have just seen, the 

 inner half of these margins are so encroached upon b}' the superciliary ridges as 

 to be obliterated. 



Bearing in miud the locality in which it was found, the skull under considera- 

 tion is so far unique in its ethnical character, that I do not feel avrthorized to 

 refer it to any of the aboriginal American cranial forms with which I am 

 acquainted. If the position in which it was discovered be any evidence of its 

 age, it belongs, in all probability, to an earlier inhabitant of the American con- 

 tinent than the present race of Indians. In the absence of a complete series of 

 American Indian ci'ania, it is impossible to assign to this skull its proper ethnical 

 position. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE COPTIC LANGUAGE. 



By M. Kabis. 



[_FroTn the Transactions of the Eyirptian Institute.^ 



The Egyptians, when they adopted Christianity, substituted Greek letters for 

 the ancient liieroglj^phics, and after that time used the language which the mod- 

 .erns designate as the Coptic, which pre\\ailed over Upper and Lower Egypt until 

 the Arabic language, introduced with Mahomedanism, took its place. We shall, 

 further on, speak of the true etymology of the word Copt ; but it will not be 

 out of the way here to show what were the motives and the historical circum- 

 stances which led the Christians of Egypt to make this change. 



We have to remark, then, that the graphic system of the ancient Egyptians 

 was so intimately connected with their religious system that it was scarcely pos- 

 sible for one of them in the time of the Pharaohs or of the Ptolemies to write 

 the smallest circumstance without mixing it up with the symbols of mythology 

 and of polytheism. The images of the gods and of the sacred animals formed 

 many of the characters employed in their writing; and an Egyptian could no 

 more avoid using them than we could write without our alphabet. Now, nothing 

 could be more at variance with the purity of the Christain religion, then newly 

 adopted by the Copts, and the piety of the worshipper than the profane hiero- 

 glyphic symbols. The early Christians of Egypt then found it to be absurd to 

 represent under the images of Ammon, or Ptali, or Osiris, the God of their faith, 

 whom they reverenced as a pure Spirit, separate from every sensible or material 

 form. Wishing, then, to disengage themselves as much as possible from the 

 ancient superstition, these disciples of St. Mark rejected the graphic system of 

 their ancestors, supplying its place with the Greek alphabet, to which they 

 added six purely Egyptian letters, to express sounds in their language, which 

 could not be represented by the Greek, 



With the alphabet they also adopted a number of Greek words. That was 

 in the beginning a matter of necessity. They were not willing to express in 

 the equivocal terms of the ancient mythology the new ideas of Christianity. 

 But this necessity soon degenerated into an abuse, and Greek expressions 

 became the fashion. This was much more the case in Lower Egypt, on account 

 of the frequent intercourse between the Greeks of Alexandria and the inhabit- 

 ants of the delta, and for the same reason the dialect of Memphis is less pure 

 than that of Thebes. It must be remarked, also, that the introduced Greek 



