Vol. XXV. No. 8.] 
POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 
121 
brought home a small obelisk that was found in 
the island of Philae, which was inscribed with a 
dedication in Hebrew and Greek to one of tlie 
Ptolemies and his sister, Cleopatra, lliis in- 
scription was copied by Cailliand in 1S16, and 
commented on by T^etronne and Cliampollion in 
the French scientific journals of 1822. On tliis 
obelisk there was a ring in the inscription identi- 
cal with the one on the Kosetta stone which served 
for rtolemy, and another for Cleopatra. By a 
fortunate coincidence these inscriptions showed 
much in the relation of characters, and, assuming 
from the analogy of other systems that objects 
depicted signified the initial letter of their Coptic 
names, both groups were spelled out, and Cham- 
poUion was in possession of eleven phonetic signs 
of the old Egyptian language. It was now made 
plain in this case that the signs were not syllabic, 
but alpliabetic. When applying them to monu- 
ments which appeared to be of the Roman epoch, 
while attempting to decipher the royal rings upon 
them, Champollion found an almost complete list 
of the Woman emperors, each with his title, em- 
peror, added, and this helped to give a clue to .all 
similar inscriptions. Some of Cliampollion's op- 
ponents suggested that the hieroglyphics were 
only used plionetically in order to transcribe the 
names of the foreign lords of Egypt, but further 
researches proved that the well-known Egyptian 
kings, Psemmetik, Shish.ak, and Rameses, were 
likewise written in phonetic characters. These 
discoveries made it certain that hieroglyphic in- 
scriptions could only be read by ascertaining the 
sounds of the old Egyptian langu.age, while if the 
writing was pictorial, or symbolic, the sense could 
have been discovered without knowing a single 
sound. 
To discover the sounds so absolutely essential 
to a correct deciphering of hieroglyphic charac- 
ters, several learned men turned to the modern 
Egyptian, or Coptic, language, which was ex- 
pressly stated by the early fathers of the Chris- 
tian church to be almost the same as demotic, 
though written in a difTerent alphaljet. Although 
Coptic is now almost obsolete, there was a school 
of Coptic priests in Rome during the last century 
and the first half of the present century, who 
could speak and write the Coptic language of 
their sacred books ; and from the information 
they possessed, together with the Coptic version 
of the scriptures, a very fair knowledge of gram- 
mar and the vocabulary was obtained. 
Champollion now set about making himself 
master of the Coptic language at Rome. He saw 
as he progressed that it retained more or less 
accurately the old Egyptian names of a large 
number of objects. He further analyzed gram- 
matical forms, terminations, and inflections, and 
found the same closely corresponding. When he 
was sent to Egypt to explore the ruins in person, 
he applied what letters he knew to groups of 
hieroglyphics apparently giving the names of nu- 
merous pictures of well-known otyects engraved 
on the tombs of Beni Hassan, and found that the 
Coptic furnished a direct clue, in almost every 
case, to the sounds of the hieroglypliics. By this 
aid he easily completed his alphabet from par- 
tially read words agreeing in sense with liuown 
names; and the great discovery gradually pro- 
gressed toward completion through sounds sug- 
gesting signs and signs sounds, each new step 
verifying and correcting previous inferences, as 
well as suggesting new ones. 
Two difficulties impeded the progress of the 
Egyptologists. One was, to understand the 
proper application of the symbolic hieroglyphics, 
and the other, when the same was to be used in 
the ideographic and phonetic sense. Champollion 
concluded that the written system of one thou- 
sand signs used at random ideographically or 
phonetically must have been a source of confu- 
sion to the Egyptians themselves, and tliat they 
must have used some means to avoid it. He 
therefore looked for and found indications added 
to the pictures which informed the reader how to 
understand them ; but these specimens which 
Champollion left unexplained he considered sym- 
bols used by priests, and of a really secret char- 
acter. Champollion's view of the secret character 
of some of the symbolic inscriptions was sup- 
ported l)y De Rouge and I^auth, but denied by 
Dumichen, who says he has been unable to find in 
the monuments any systematic secret writing side 
by side witli the usual hieroglyphics. Mr. Birch, 
of the British Museum, agrees with this view, and 
advances tlie theory that the twenty-second dy- 
nasty of Assyrian origin introduced phonetic 
signs for many ideograplis, and so produced these 
so-called anaglyphs. Brugsch considers them 
merely a profusion of ideal lines of individual 
fancy, which make the interpretation a matter of 
great labor and ingenuity, but not impossible. 
The second obstacle, though greater, was really 
overcome as soon as it became evident that the 
Egyptians used different signs to signify the same 
sound. At tlie outset, when the names Berenike 
and Alexaudros were guessed at, it was found 
that k and s had different signs. This was notice- 
able in tlie rings, and in the several copies of the 
long and elaborate book of ritual which tlie old 
Egyptians placed in coffins with the mummies 
now found in European museums. It was dis- 
covered that, although they are identical in the 
sense and character, they contain frequent varia- 
tions as to single signs, and in the hieratic copies 
the same sign generally represents these varia- 
tions. It was clear that they were different 
equivalents for the same sounds, or what are 
called homophones, and after the discovery of 
one the others became easily known. 
Lepsius has since established that the most 
ancient alphabet admitted many liomophones; 
and De Rouge says that many of them really 
indicate slight variations of pronunciation, which, 
like the various sounds of th, were carefully dis- 
tinguished by some scribes by separate signs. 
.Vfter discovering the homophones it only re- 
quired additional researches to complete the 
structure which ChanipoUion had founded and of 
which he had sketched the plan. Hundreds of 
perfectly distinct documents have since been read 
by the principles of interpretation, and consistent 
meaning drawn from them. Though no other 
corroboration was wanting, it came crowding on 
tlie Egyptologists in the numerous confirniiitions 
of historical facts thus readily deciphered ; aud 
when Eepsius discovered another trilingual in 
hieroglyphics in 1866, while making researches at 
Tanis, tlie demotic, Greek, and Egyptian were 
read oft" and explained mucli easier than a fair 
Latin scholar could have rendered the same 
amount of Tacitus, and the translation produced 
a sense identical with that of the Greek version. 
Another test of the correctness of the principles 
of interpretation laid down by modern Egyptolo- 
gists was offered not many years ago by Mariette, 
who copied from the pillars along the line of the 
Suez Canal inscriptions set in four languages by 
Darius I., King of Persia, describing how he had 
undertaken the cutting of the canal, lint stopped 
when it was almost completed because he was 
persuaded that the level of the Red Sea and the 
Mediterranean varied, and Egypt would be inun- 
dated by opening the canal. The inscriptions 
found on several stone pillars were written in 
hieroglyphic and three kinds of cuneiform char- 
acters, and it was found that the Persian and 
Assyrian versions corresponded in sense with the. 
hieroglyphic as now interpreted, adding, how- 
ever, many details intended for the special edifi- 
cation of the Egyptian subjects of the great king. 
Champollion's system of interpreting hiero- 
glyphics encountered some opposition at every 
step of his progress. Among the most eminent 
who suggested other systems were Klaproth, Ja- 
nelli, Palin, Williams, the Jesuit astronomer Sec- 
chi, Seyfrath, and Uhlemann. Each one proposed 
some method of his own, and all dift'ering, with 
the exception of Uhlemann, who adopted Sey- 
frath's suggestions. Tliese proposed systems and 
suggestions had the good effect, however, of stim- 
ulating greater exertions to correct and establish 
the system and rules laid down by Champollion 
and his disciples. The most renowned of the lat- 
ter are De Sacy, Nieliuhr, Humboldt, Lepsius, 
Bunsen, Rosellini, Leemans, Wilkinson, Hinks, 
Brugsch, Birch, De Rouche, Cliepas, La Page, 
Renouf, Lauth, Dumiclien, Goodwin, Czermjik, 
Deveria, Eisenlohr, Eliers, Mariette, and Maspero. 
The researches in hieratic writing were neces- 
sarily very closely linked with the study of hiero- 
glyphics. The deciphering of the demotic writ- 
ing was especially studied by De Sacy, Ackerblad, 
and Young. It was further elucidated by Cham- 
pollion, Tattam, Salvolini, Lepsius, De Saubey, 
Leemans, and Maspercf; and finally treated by 
Brugsch in a separate Grammar, Hieroglyphic and 
Demotic Dictionary. 
[Special Correspondence of Populak Science News.] 
PARIS LETTER. 
To the naturalist it seems that aquatic animals 
are more interesting than others, and during the 
present century more has been done towards the 
investigation of the conditions aud peculiarities of 
aquatic life than during the whole past civiHza- 
tion. ITie numerous marine laboratories which 
have sprung into existence in the last twenty 
years have much lielped towards this result ; and, 
although it may be rightly said that, in France, 
especially, there are too many of them, and that 
the money expended might be more profitably 
spent if the same sum could be distributed among 
a smaller number of establishments, they have 
performed good work. It may be presumed that 
marine animals have proved more attractive than 
others because of their peculiar mode of life. 
While the principal physiological functions of 
higher land animals and of aquatic animals are 
the same, considerable modifications are to be 
met in the manner in which they are effected in 
the latter, on account of the medium in which 
they live; and the more animals live in different 
manner and environment from that which we our- 
selves inhabit, the more they prove interesting to 
us. We are all fully convinced that the physi- 
ology of higlier animals is but a special form of 
innumerable forms of possible physiology, and it 
is always a matter of great interest to us to wit- 
ness the possible departure from the type which 
is best known to us. 
Many are the papers which h.ave been written 
on the conditions of aquatic life, but no really 
good book had been — until a few weeks ago — 
published on the matter, giving an abstract of the 
different investigations and summarizing our pres- 
ent knowledge. M. P. Regnard, professor of phy- 
siology in the Institute National Agronomique, and 
who has conducted a large number of personal 
investigations on the suliject, has just filled this 
gap in writing his Secherches Experimentales sur 
