FAEQUII ARSON ON INSCRIBED TABLETS, 111 



elements : an arbitrary system of symbols to denote years, months, days, 

 seasons, the elements, and events of frequent occurrence; an effort to 

 delineate persons and their acts by rude drawings ; and a phonetic sys- 

 tem ivhich, through objects, conveyed sounds that, siyigly or in combination, 

 expressed the facts they loere designed to record.^'' 



The objection that the mound builders were in too rude a state to have 

 had a phonetic, or, indeed, any written language, seems to me a not in- 

 superable one. 



Livingstone* found the people of Bergema (Central Africa) possessed 

 of a written language, consisting of 280 letters or characters, each repre- 

 senting an entire syllable. It is true, they may have inherited this alpha- 

 bet, or gained it by contact with other nations, but the latter is not 

 known to be the fact. 



As having some bearing on the question of the possibility of the mound 

 builders forming an alphabet of written characters, the fact of the devis- 

 ing of an alphabet by a probably kindred people, the Cherokees, is 

 worthy of mention. Now, though the Cherokees had long been in con- 

 tact with the whites, especially the English, the inventor Sequoyah, or 

 George Guess, did not copy the English alphabet, giving another force to 

 the different letters or characters ; he could not even read English, and 

 the alphabet of his invention is totally unlike that of the English, or, 

 indeed, of any modern tongue. 



.Sir John Lubbockf speaks in the following high terms of praise of the 

 Cherokee alphabet : '' Sequoyah invented a system of letters which, as 

 far as the Cherokee language is concerned, is better than ours. Cherokee 

 contains twelve consonants and six vowels, with a nasal sound, mung. 

 Multiplying the twelve consonants by the six vowels, and adding the 

 vowels which occur singly, he acquired seventy-seven characters, to 

 which he added eight, representing the sounds s,Tca,hna, nah,ta,te,ti, tla, 

 making, altogether, eighty-five characters. This alphabet, as already 

 mentioned, is better than ours. The characters are indeed numerous, 

 but when once learned the pupil can read at once. It is said that a boy 

 can learn Cherokee, when thus expressed, in a few weeks, while if ordi- 

 nary letters are used, two years are required." 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HUNTING SCENE, AND REMARKS UPON 



THE QUESTION OF THE CONTEMPORANEOUS EXISTENCE OF 



MAN AND THE MASTODON (PLATE II). 



Of the animal kingdom, 30 individuals are represented, divided as fol- 

 lows, viz: Man, 8 ; bison, 4; deer, 4; birds, 3; hares, 3; big horn or 

 Rocky Mountain goat, 1 ; fishes, 1 ; prairie wolf, 1 ; nondescript ani- 

 mals, 3. Of these latter, one defies recognition, but the other two, appar- 

 ently of the same species, are the most interesting figures of the whole 

 group. These animals are supposed by different critics to represent she- 

 moose, tapirs or mastodons. 



*Travels in Africa, p. 228. 

 fOrigin of Civilization, appendix. 



