212 Rey. Epwarp Hrincxs on the Number, Names, and Powers 
these being the representatives of the long serpent is strongly in favour of the 
latter value. But, if this be so, it becomes a question whether the power of ¥ was 
not ch, in place of ts, as generally supposed.* This is, however, not a necessary 
consequence, as in transcription ch might be used as the nearest representative 
of x, without its being its actual value. 
31. A reservoir of water (SX 1; sx 1) was used in the first age, and had the 
pair of oblique lines for its expletive. Its value has been hitherto supposed to 
be that of sh in sheep; I regard it, however, as in the age of the papyri, and pre- 
viously thereto, having had the power of skh, and so being a double letter. At 
a subsequent period I admit that it became equivalent to our sh. This softening 
down of the hard sound is analogous to what has taken place in both English and 
German; the Anglo-Saxon word was sceap or scepe, the English is sheep ; the 
old High German was scaf, the modern is schaf, which is now sounded as shaf; 
though originally it was not so. The fact of this character having an expletive is 
no objection to its having a compound sound, at least, if 1 be correct in suppos- 
ing that the preceding character has one too. My reasons for giving it this 
value are, first, the transcription, fig. 136, already mentioned under No. 13, where 
it corresponds to the Hebrew nv, and secondly, the frequent use of the chair- 
back, $1, or the broken line, S2, before it, without apparently altering its signi- 
fication. It has been assumed that this was in every instance the formative of 
the causative conjugation; but this assumption appears to me an arbitrary one. 
Observation shews that it is used much more frequently before this character than 
before others, especially in ancient inscriptions, and that it is so used in verbs 
where the causative sense is not required, and in nouns. Nay, what is still more 
decisive, it is so used in the middle of words. Thus, on the coffin of Menkare,— 
“Let thy mother Netpe throw herself over thee,” as I take it to mean,—the 
verb used is that in fig. 156. The last character, the cross, is a determinative 
sign, used where crossing or reciprocal action is implied; and I read the letters 
PeSX, and not PeSeSX, supposing the broken line to be a mere completion of 
the double letter SX, in which it is implicitly contamed. This verb is apparently 
the same as the Hebrew no, pausdkh ; see Gesenius, and in particular see its 
* It isa strong confirmation of this opinion that the last syllable of the name of Nebuchadnez- 
zar, which is 9B in Hebrew, is char in the Bisitun inscription. 
