146 Rev. Epwarp Hincxs on the Number, Names, and Powers 
the known characteristics of both the Indo-Germanic and the Semitic languages, 
the only ones which we can suppose to have prevailed in the countries to which 
the names belonged. See figs. 15, 16, 28. 
Thirdly, that certain foreign names are at times found written in a manner 
exactly conformable to their Hebrew transcriptions, and with the genius of the 
language to which they belong; and, at other times, with superfluous letters, 
which render them irreconcileable to it. Cf. fig. 24 with 25; figs. 26 and 27 
with 23. 
Fourthly, that if a consonant, in a foreign word, be substituted for one of 
like power, it will sometimes happen that the following vowel is changed into one 
of a different power; which would alter the pronunciation of the word unless 
the vowels were merely expletive. Cf. figs. 19, 21. 
Fifthly, that the apparently superfluous letters in words are not inserted 
arbitrarily, but according to a fixed law, each character having one expletive, 
which, and no other, is found attached to it. Thus, the basin, K, the garden, 
SH, and the flowering water-plant, KH, always take the eagle for an expletive ; 
the leg, B, the square mat, P, and the pair of leaves, I, always take the quail or 
lituus ; the quail or htuwus, U, the sieve, KH, and the reservoir of water, SH, 
always take the éwo small lines ; the owl, M, takes the arm ; the purse, T, takes 
the /eaf, and so in other instances. If a character which is sometimes expletive 
were to follow a letter of which it is not the proper expletive, as the leaf; in 
fig. 25, we are by no means at liberty to reject it. It is on the fact that, when 
expletives are used, the same expletive is always attached to each letter, that 
the proof of this new law mainly rests. The examples already given shew the 
regularity with which some expletives follow some letters. The mouth, with 
its small bar, occurs in seven words ; the purse, with its /eaf, and the ow/, with 
its arm, each in four; and the /eg, with its gwail, im three. The only excep- 
tions to this principle, that each letter has one, and but one, expletive, attached 
to it, are these two. 
1. The quail and the litwus (fig. 29) were, in the age of the papyri, used 
indiscriminately as forms of the same character, the same hierographic sign (a) 
being used for both of them. If, therefore, any letter, as the Jeg, took the one 
of these for its expletive, it might take the other also. 
2. Some letters have for their expletives ideographic signs which imply letters ; 
