in the triple Inscriptions of the Persians, &c. 273 
should be read ‘ Harmene,’ and, consequently, that, as far as this example is 
entitled to any weight, it makes not for, but directly against his representation 
of the matter. Of the use of the third element of the cuneiform system of voca- 
lization to express 0, instances may be adduced from the cuneiform names of 
* Cappadocia’ and « Mardonius,’ which should not be transcribed, as they have 
been by the Major, * Katapatuka’ and ‘ Marduniya,’ but ‘ Katapatoka’ and 
‘ Mardoniya,’ in accordance with the testimony of Herodotus, who has written 
those names Kazrradoxiy and Mapdovios; and on whose authority, therefore, 
the value of 0 is to be assigned to the letter in question in the cuneiform groups 
here referred to. 
For the purpose of sustaining quite a different view of this subject, it has 
been attempted most ingeniously by Dr. Hincks,* in a paper of his read to a 
meeting of the Academy in June,1846, and somewhat later, though independently 
of him, by Major Rawlinson, to account for occasional changes of the phonetic 
values of the cuneiform letters ¢ and w, into, respectively, € and 0, by assuming 
that very arbitrary rules, analogous to those of the Sanscrit guna (according to 
which a combined with 7 brings out the sound e, and, combined with w, the 
sound 0), were employed in this writing ; and by further assuming, in order to 
the application of such rules, that wherever, from any cause, the vowel-letters 
whose immediate values they confine to 7 and w, ought, either of them, to have 
its sound changed, the preceding character should in each instance be dealt 
with, not as a consonant, but as the sign of a syllable ending in a, the amalga- 
mation of which vowel with the one to be operated on would produce the 
required alteration of its sound. But, to show the fallacy of this specious theory, 
* Though I venture to differ upon some points with the Rey. Dr. Edward Hincks, late Fellow 
of Trinity College, Dublin, yet, I must say, I consider no author superior to him, and very few his 
equals, in ingenuity combined with learning. It is, indeed, by means which he has himself sup- 
plied, that I am enabled to combat the theory of his above noticed: for, as I may, perhaps, in 
the next volume of my Work have occasion to show, Dr. Hincks is clearly entitled to the credit 
of the discovery of the true distinction between the primary and secondary consonants of the 
alphabet belonging to the first kind of cuneiform writing, namely, that the former may be con- 
nected in utterance, each of them, with any of the vowels of the system, but that the use of the 
latter is more restricted in this respect ;—a discovery of the utmost importance in reference to the 
object of completing our knowledge of the nature and mode of application of this very curious 
alphabet. 
VOL. XXI. 2M 
