178 
Greek age, was given as an example ; the two feathers in this 
word representing, not, as has been heretofore supposed, an I 
singly, but IU, the name of that letter ; while, on the other 
hand, in the name « Philipus,” the name IU is twice written 
for the single vowel I, 
In order to establish this principle, it was first shewn that 
it was adopted in transcribing foreign words, when written in 
Egyptian characters, in the papyri published in fac-simile by 
the Trustees of the British Museum, and mostly dated in 
the reign of Rameses the Great, and his grandson. A num- 
ber of such transcripts were produced. Some of them were 
Shewn not to represent the words that corresponded to 
them, which were preserved in Hebrew characters in the 
Old Testament, unless a quantity of, apparently, superfluous 
characters ‘were removed ; such were Ma-ru-ka-bu-ta for 
both singular and plural of the name of a chariot, Mirkéveth; 
I-u-ma for Yam, a sea; and Pu-ha-ru-ta for Phrat, the river 
Euphrates. Others were shewn to be written at times with 
those, apparently, superfluous characters, and at other times 
without them, as Astaruta and Astart, the name of the Syrian 
goddess; K-sh, Kash and Kshi, varieties of the name of a 
country which we know was Kush, the supplied vowel being 
« and not a. It was observed, as an essential point in the 
proof, that the vowel which was introduced in this seemingly 
“unnecessary manner, was always the same after each letter ; 
some letters, however, take for their expletives ideagraphic 
signs, which determine their pronunciation, and are thus equi- 
valent to vowels. It was remarked that the letter may, in 
such cases, have for its expletive either the ideagraphic 
character, or the letter which it suggests or implies. This is 
an apparent but not a real exception to the law proposed, 
It was shewn, secondly, that this principle was not con- 
fined to foreign words, though applied to them more systema- 
tically; but that several pure Egyptian words were written 
with superfluous characters. In order to meet the cayils 
which it was anticipated would be raised against this position, 
