

CUNEIFORM. 



iHed i* water *d deooanposed by hydro- 

 is pr*ftprt>t.d. and altar crytaUiatoi 

 form of beautiful oolourls*. pUU 



When the fund OMB i* 



chloric acid, the cuminic Mid 



from alcohol is obtained in th* fora 



is a mooobsMo acid ; its *ah> hav* UM general formula C,H U 1IO.. 



MMH ,.,-. ,::, hi . rl ..,,.. 

 When oumink, acid ia treated with nitric acid there is formed, ac- 



cording M the action is modified. *itnc*mi*it and (C^H,,<NO,K).), or 

 nsf (C_H 10 (NO.>,0.). By the action of pentachloride 

 it* ckkr&o/nmyl v C K ,H,,O t ,CI> is formed : 



+ pa, i c l( H, t o |l a 4 na 4 ro.ci, 



I : 



Chloride of 



CumjrL 



Oxrchlorlde 



. ] :. ;-', tm 





This u a colourlras liquid, which fumas in moist air, and boils at 

 493 F. By wattr it i* deooniposed into hydrochloric acid and cuminie 



acid, and by auunouia into c*mixamulc (C IO H 1> O I = 



Cuminamkle i* also formed when eliminate of ammonia is <! 

 resemble* bencamide. 



Atikydr^iiit ctatimic acid (C rt H u O,>, is formed by the action of 

 chloride of cumyl on oumiuate of soda. It closely resembles the cor- 

 responding benxoio compound. 



CnmoU (C,,!!,,), Ugdnde of Cmeyl, Cvmme, is formed when cu- 

 minic acid is distilled with excess of caustic baryta : 



Ca.1,,0, 



4 C,.H lt 



Cuminle add. Baryta. Carbonate of Cumole. 

 baryta. 



It also exists in coal-tar naphtha, from which it is separated by fractional 

 distillation. It boils at 292 F. It is homologous with benzole, which 

 it greatly resembles, and under the influence of various agents it under- 

 goes a aeries of changes exactly similar to those of that body. Thus, 

 there exists a mtrorHmofc (C l .H, l NO t ),and&i'i<rot<mafe (U,,H 10 (Np.). 

 The former, under the influence of reducing agents, is converted into 



a compound ammonia, 



, S N 



H,,! 

 H > 

 H J 



N) an oily liquid, 



which with acids forms crystalliaablo salts. There is also a tuljiho- 

 cnmexic acid (C.,H,,S,O,), homologous with sulphobenzolic acid. 



Cumittic Alcukol (C^d lt O t ). When cuiuinic aldehyde is treated with 

 potash ley of moderate concentration, it undergoes a change analogous 

 to that experienced by its homologue, benzoio aldehyde, under the 

 same circumstances, being converted into cuiuinic acid, and cuminic 

 alcohol : 



Cuminic aldehyde. Potash* 



Cuminate of 

 potash. 



4C,.II 14 0. 



Cuminic 

 alcohol. 



This alcohol is a colourless liquid, with a feeble aromatic odour, and 

 an acrid taste. It is insoluble in water ; it boils at 470 F. Like ita 

 homologue, benzole alcohol, with which it has great similarity, it has 

 all the properties of an alcohol. It decomposes under the influence of 

 re-agents into products analogous to those furnished by ordinary 

 alcohol, the difference being that from the greater complexity of the 

 molecule it is more difficult to produce these changes. 



CUMINOL. [CCMIMC ACID.] 



CUMOLE. [CUMIXIC ACID.] 



CtJMONITRILE (C^H,,!?). Thin body, which is the cyanide of 

 cumenyl (C ls H,.Cy), is obtained by heating eliminate of ammonia. It 

 in a colourless oily body, of an agreeable odour. 



CUMYL (Cj-fi.^.). The hypothetical radical of cuminic acid. 

 [Ccjirxio ACID.] 



CUMYL-SALICYLAMIDE (C^H.-NO,). A crystalline amide ob- 

 tained by the action of chloride of cuuiyl upon salicylamide. [AMIDES.] 



CUNEIFORM orCUNEATIC. These words, as well as arrow-headed, 

 nail-headed, and wedge-formed, describe the oldest written characters 

 used in the country about the Tigris and Euphrates, and subsequently 

 in Persia. All refer to the strokes or elements of the characters 

 which were thought by traveller* who saw the tablets on which they 

 were inscribed, to represent wedges or the beads of nails or arrows: 



they vary from a neatly formed stroke like this Y to a clum-y 



triaugular wedge. There are two distinct alphabets made up of these 

 wedges or arrow-heads; the older one, called the Assyrian or lial.y- 

 louian, oonsinU of more than two hundred characters, in which the 

 wedges are placed horizontally, perpendicularly, and obliquely, often 

 croMing each other in all directions; the oblique wedge freo,in MU 

 becomes an angular book, from UM lengthening of one side <>i th',. 



bead: thus, A^ becomes X , and at length ^ . The Babylonian 



differs from th* Assyrian little more than the handwriting of one man 

 from that of another. The more recent alphabet was used in Persia ; 

 it consisted of thirty-six letters only, the stroke* were all horizontal or 

 perpendicular, and with our exception they were never made to cross 



each other. This second alphabet U wry dfeinoUy formed In all UM 

 case, that have onme down to us, BO one letter is at all doubtful, and 

 UM words are separated from each other by an oblique (train. 



Of the above alphabet* UM older one appears on monuments dating 

 at least twenty centuries before UM Christian era, and document* are 

 found written with it which come down to the time when Alexander's 

 lueoBssors were ruling in Western Asia. In that long interval it 

 underwent many modifications, which greatly disguise its id. 

 but a careful investigation will MOW that the characters do not differ 

 more than the Roman, Italic, and old English types now in use; 

 not so much as UM variously OOP totted letters we ace occasionally, 

 intended by their contrivers to be ornamental. Thi* alphabet was 

 lined in writing at least four different language*, only one of which has 

 been studied to any great extent j it is a most cumbrous alphabet, 

 almost equalling the Egyptian in clumsiness and imperfection. The 

 other alphabet was usedin the Persian empire only, where it appears 

 to have been introduced by the elder Cyrus, and it U found in docti- 

 mentoof the time of Artaxerxes Ochus; it lasted, therefore, a 

 of oenturiea, from (40 B.C. to 840 B.C. This was a true alphabet of 

 thirty-six letters ; it Is easily read, the words are separated, there i* 

 v. TV little variety of form in the letters, aud it was used solely i 

 l>rincii>al language of the Persian empire. 



It may be said that there is a third alphabet, the one used in the 

 so-called Scythic inscriptions of Persia, but this is really a modification 

 of the first mentioned Assyrian alphabet ; it is somewhat simplified, 

 and it rejects the more complex forms. So far as we know, it was 

 employed solely for the Scythic versions of the inscriptions of the 

 Achemamian dynasty ; and its duration was aim from the reign of 

 Cyrus to that of Artaxerxes Ochus. 



These three kinds of writing almost without exception are found 

 together, in the inscriptions of the Achemaenian period, in the Persian 

 empire ; all such monuments contain the same notice or statement in 

 the three languages and alphabets. The writing upon the highest or 

 most prominent tablet is called universally the first kind ; we phonM 

 '< inclined to call it the Median writing, as being in the language of 

 the moat numerous and civilised of the inhabitants of the Persian 

 empire, if the Median name had not hopelessly yielded to that of the 

 Persians, the energetic race of the province of Penis, who imposed 

 their rule upon Media, in the same way as the energetic Uvrman Frank* 

 imposed their own national denomination over all Gaul. The next iu 

 place on the monuments is that modification of Assyrian us- 

 Turanian language ; it is called " the second kind," as well as Median 

 and Scythic ; the language may have been that of the pn >vi i 

 and placed so high on the inscriptions as being the tongue of tin- 

 native province of Cyrus. The third in place is the Bal>\ 

 language of the most literary portion of the Persian empire, which 

 was necessary for the dissemination of a knowledge of the inscriptions 

 over its western provinces. The employment of this version has proved 

 the stepping-stone to the decipherment of the Assyrian language and 

 character, almost identical with Babylonian, without which we are 

 contident that the relics of Assyrian literatim*, found in such abundance 

 within these few years, could never have been by any possibility 

 understood. 



All the early accounts of cuneiform inscription* refer to the monu- 

 ments of Persia; they were all visible, and iu lofty places, while those 

 of Assyria were buried among the ruins of cities, luckily far out of 

 reach, to be found at the very moment when only could there be any 

 hope of ascertaining their value, when a few learned scholars had suc- 

 ceeded, after thirty years' labour, in reading the easier monuments 

 which were to give a clue to the intelligence of the more mysterious 

 relics now coming into view. All attempts at decipherment had been 

 confined, with hardly an exception, to the first kind of writing, until 

 the labours of Layard and Botta, in and about the mounds of the 

 long-lost, almost fabulous Nineveh, brought to the knowledge of 

 Europe the vast treasures of Assyrian civilisation, and, in tin- m.ijority 

 of instances, not only the knowledge of their existence, but the monu- 

 ments themselves; not only the great advertisements posted up on tin- 

 walls of the empire, as in Persia, but thousands of the books intended 

 to be consulted in the study. Them books are closely written slabs of 

 dried clay, from a pocket edition of two inches by one and a-half , or even 

 less, to a quarto slab of eight inches by six. We frequently tiii' 

 barrel-shaped masses of terra-cot ta, from four to seven inches long, and 

 six to ten inches in circumference; ami when the document was 

 larger it was written on a prism of six, eight, or ten sides, from twelve 

 to twenty inches long ; one has been found in fragments, which may 

 have been more than thirty inches long. These prisms had :i hole 

 through their length, as though intended to be mounted like a roller, 

 anil turned rounil to present its rides in succession to the reader. The 

 writing <>n all these torra-cotta books is small, from six to ten In 



',. but Home words are occasionally much smaller, like notes, of 

 nliieh .-i \tccii at least might be included in an inch. The' long during 

 burial of these oldest specimens of literal v labour, while it has for so 

 many centuries kept from the world such abundant sources of our 

 knowledge of ancient history, has done us the great set 

 serving these fragile relics in as perfect a condition as tiny were in 

 when first buried under the ruins of Assyria; many of thru. 

 fresh as when they came from the hands of the moulder, with the 

 burred edge made ny the writing-tool upon the soft clay still^poi 



