to them in about B.C. 3500. It was generally 

 opaque, always coloured, and only small articles 

 were made of it. Transparent glass was not made 

 until about B.C. 660, and even in Pliny's time, 

 colourless, transparent glass was highly valued and 

 called crystal. 



The commencement of the art of writing is to be 

 found in the pictographs of the dolmens of the Stone 

 age. Pictographic writing is a series of represen- 

 tations of the objects intended to be mentioned, and 

 is independent of language, it could only be used 

 for objects, not for ideas or abstractions. Hiero- 

 glyphic writing is first known in Egypt, where it 

 was used by the priests, or hierarchy, at a very early 

 date. In this the picture represents a sound, the 

 meaning of which has been agreed upon, but each 

 sound is either a word or a syllable. The figures 

 were gradually reduced to symbols in which the 

 figures are unrecognisable. The Phoenicians in- 

 vented the alphabet, about B.C. 1500. They chose 

 some twenty of the Egyptian symbols, and used 

 them for the principal articulate sounds of human 

 speech. This alphabet gave rise to (1) the Hebrew, 

 from which the Sanskrit and Arabic alphabets were 

 derived. There are no signs for vowels, and it is 

 written from right to left. And (2) the Greek, from 

 which is derived the Latin and other European 

 Alphabets. In this there are separate signs for the 

 vowels, and the writing is from left to right. 



Nations have been classified into 1. Savage, who 

 live by fishing and hunting wild animals. 2. Bar- 

 barian, who cultivate the soil, and have domestic 



