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January 26, 1846. 
GEORGE PETRIE, Esa., Vice-President, in the Chair. 
The Rev. Samuel Butcher, F.'T.C. D., read the first part 
of a paper by the Rev. Dr. Hincks, on Hieroglyphics. 
This paper commences with a review of the progress made 
in Egyptian learning, from the first discoveries of Drs. Young 
and Champollion to the present day. It was alleged, that very 
little progress had been made since the death of Champollion, 
the only point established since that event being the principle 
of peculiar letters and their complements, discovered by Dr. 
Lepsius. The causes of the want of progress since this disco- 
very were affirmed to be two: Ist, ignorance of another prin- 
ciple, in some measure antagonistic to this, which was exten- 
sively applied in Egyptian writing; and, 2nd, an erroneous 
mode of investigating the phonetic powers of the letters. This 
consideration was postponed till the second part of the paper: 
the third part to contain the results, as far as yet known, of an 
investigation into the powers of the letters, conducted in the 
manner that would be shewn, in the second part, to be most 
likely to lead to the truth. 
The present part was devoted to the establishment of the 
new principle above referred to. The principle is this: “the 
phonoglyphs which compose the proper Egyptian alphabet 
had names, which consisted of themselves with the addition 
of certain expletive characters: and these names might be, 
and often were, used in place of the single phonoglyphs. If, 
then, a phonoglyph belonging to the alphabet be followed by 
the expletive character which appertains to it, that expletive 
may be, and, for the most part, should be, altogether neglected.” 
It was added, that the single characters were occasionally, 
though not frequently, used for their names, and the name 
** Ptulmius” occurring so frequently on monuments of the 
