340 Dr Prichard's Anniversart/ Address 



which are very able and elaborate compositions. Among 

 these is a memoir on the Classification of the Languages of 

 Africa, by Dr Latham, a paper which is announced as form- 

 ing the commencement of a series of similar memoirs, des- 

 tined to comprise all the known languages of the woi"ld. 

 There is likewise a learned essay on the Celtic Languages, by 

 Dr Meyer, who is well known to have studied, with remark- 

 able success, the literature of the Celtic nations, and to whom 

 both England and Germany look for a further elucidation of 

 their history. I shall presently have occasion to mention 

 some other papers of great interest that were read on the 

 same occasion. 



I must now endeavour to take a brief survey of the late ex- 

 plorations of ancient history on another path, that of Palaeo- 

 graphy. 



The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain, 

 as well as some of the most celebrated periodical publica- 

 tions which make their appearance in Germany, have been 

 of late much occupied by a series of investigations relating 

 to the Cuneiform Inscriptions. In the short anniversary 

 address^read before this Society in the course of the last 

 year, I took occasion briefly to allude to the Cuneiform In- 

 scriptions ; and as every year witnesses some considerable 

 advancement in these researches, and the last year and a half 

 have been the period of some remarkable discoveries, I shall 

 now attempt to point out, in a very summary manner, the re- 

 sults which the eff'orts of learned men have yet obtained in this 

 path, so far as they tend to elucidate ancient ethnology. It is 

 well known that the inscriptions in characters termed CMwei- 

 /£>/7Mor-^/'/"o/i'-/<ertrfefl?, are pieces of writings inscribed on rocks, 

 monuments of stone, and masses of bi'ick, and cat in charac- 

 ters which are composed of cuneifoi*m or wedge-shaped strokes 

 or arrow-headed lines, differently grouped and disposed. 

 These inscriptions do not consist of merely a few lines or brief 

 sentences, like the " Runes" of Northern Europe, which are 

 mostly short epitaphs. They are in many instances long com- 

 positions, covering a large space, which, since some of them 

 have been decyphered and read, have been found to contain 

 historical memorials of the most celebrated nations of the east. 



