278 THE COMING OF MAN 



ing and to spread this knowledge among the other 

 nations. 



But they soon found all those pictures and symbols 

 too cumbersome to use in their trade, and no wonder; 

 for how could the Phoenician merchant in Tyre send 

 a definite order, made out like a rebus, to the miners 

 in the tin mine in Britain. It took too long to make, 

 and it was too hard to read. 



Business men could not spend time writing orders 

 that at best were puzzling, even in those long-ago 

 days. So they invented a simpler method. They 

 changed the Egyptian symbols into simpler forms, 

 choosing one to stand for each sound that they made 

 in their words. Twenty- two plain little symbols 

 they made, and these put together in different ways 

 represented all their words. We call such symbols 

 the alphabet. These little symbolic sounds having 

 been agreed upon, the merchants in Tyre could 

 send definite and simple orders to their miners, their 

 traders and their sailors, which would be understood 

 and obeyed. So their business prospered. 



Now the Greeks at this time were marvelous story 

 tellers. They imagined that every different thing 

 in nature was the work of some god or goddess. 

 They imagined, too, pretty stories to explain why 

 nature is as it is. They had poets who told these 

 stories and who sang long songs of the wondrous 

 deeds] performed by their heroes. But as they had 

 no way to write these things down, they could only 

 preserve them by committing them to memory. 

 Bards went about from place to place singing and 

 reciting the stories of the gods and goddesses and 



