310 Rev. Dr. Watt on the different Kinds of Cuneiform Writing 
this name in the same page, assigns simply the power of XN’. Upon this, how- 
ever, and some other objections, which must naturally occur to the mind, I shall 
not dwell; as he might possibly have lessened or removed the grounds for them, 
if he had taken more time to digest and mature his plan. But there is one evil 
essentially connected with the supposition of the above series of characters con- 
stituting an alphabetic designation of a word, which is fatal to this hypothesis, 
and to which I now request attention. In order to ascertain in how many ways 
this series can be read, the numbers are to be multiplied together which express 
the several amounts of the different phonetic values of its ingredients considered 
each of them separately. These numbers might, perhaps, by the introduction of 
some checks, be reduced ; but not one element of the series could, I will venture 
to say, be limited, even through the most guarded modification of the system, to a 
single value, without running into gross inconsistencies in the application of this 
value to it in other situations. Here, however, I have to confine myself to the 
particular form of the phonetic theory adopted by our author. According to 
this theory, then, as determined by his exposition of it combined with his prac- 
tice, the initial character of the series admits of three values, viz.: Nabu, N’nebe, 
N’; the second, of four values, viz.: k’, kh’, g’, 7’; the third, of eight values, 
viz.: ku, khu, gu, ju, ke, khe, ge, je; the fourth, of eight values, viz.: ba, pa, 
wa, ma, b’, p’, w’, m’; the fifth, of four values, viz.: ru, lu, re, le; the sixth, of 
eight values, viz.: ba, pa, wa, ma, b, p’, w’, m’; the seventh, of fowr values, 
viz.: sa, sha, za, cha; and the eighth, of four values, viz.: ra, la,r’,?. In 
this enumeration of the different values of each element of the series, I have 
restricted myself to the primary vocalization employed by Dr. Hincks in his first 
two readings, by which several of the numbers are considerably lessened (as, for 
instance, without this restriction, the different phonetic values of the third cha- 
racter would be, in addition to the eight already given, eight more, viz. : ka, kha, 
ga, ja, k’, kh’, g’, 7’); neither have I availed myself of the further variations 
afforded by the instances of secondary vocalization which occur in his third read- 
ing: but, with all these limitations, the number of modes in which the series in 
question may be read, according to his system, amounts to 393,216. Now, admit- 
ting for a moment some one of these to be the correct reading of the series, how 
is a decipherer to find out which of them is that one? Surely, writing of which 
each sentence, and even every word of any considerable length in each sentence, 
