208 CENTRAL AMERICAN PICTURE-WRITING. 
they to be read from right to left, or the reverse? In vertical columns, 
are they to be read up or down? Third, to see whether they were 
phonetic characters, or merely ideographic, or a mixture of the two— 
rebus-like, in fact. 
If the characters turned out to be purely phonetic, I had determined 
to stop at this point, since I had not the time to learn the Maya language, 
and again because I utterly and totally distrusted the methods which, up 
to this time, have been applied by BRASSEUR DE BouURBOURG and 
others who start, and must start, from the misleading and unlucky 
aiphabet handed down by LanpA. I believe that legacy to have been 
a positive misfortune, and I believe any process of the kind attempted 
by BRASSEUR DE BouRBOURG (for example, in his essay on the MS. 
Troano) to be extremely dangerous and difficult in application, and to 
require a degree of scientific caution almost unique. 
Dr. HARRISON ALLEN, in his paper, “The Life Form in Art,” in the 
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, is the only investiga- 
tor who has applied this method to Central American remains with suc- 
cess, So it seems to me; and even here errors have occurred. 
The process I allude to is something like the following: A set of char- 
acters, say the alphabet of LANDA, is taken as a starting point. The 
variants of these are formed. Then the basis of the investigation is 
ready. From this, the interpretation follows by identifications of each 
new character with one of the standard set or with one of its variants. 
Theoretically, there is no objection to this procedure. Practically, also, 
there is no objection if the work is done strictly in the order named. In 
fact, however, the list of variants is filled out not before the work is 
begun, but during its progress, and in such a way as to satisfy the nec- 
essities of the interpreter in carrying out some preconceived idea. With 
a sufficient latitude in the choice of variants any MS. can receive any in- 
terpretation. For example, the MS. Troano, which a casual examina- 
tion leads me to think is a ritual, and an account of the adventures of 
several Maya gods, is interpreted by BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG as a 
record of mighty geologic changes. It is next to impossible to avoid 
errors of this nature at least, and in fact they have not been avoided, 
so far as I know, except by Dr. ALLEN in the paper cited. 
I, personally, have chosen the stones and not the manuscripts for 
study largely because variants do not exist in the same liberal degree 
in the stone inscriptions as they have been supposed to exist in the 
manuscripts. 
At any one ruin the characters for the same idea are alike, and alike 
to a marvelous degree. At another ruin the type is just a little different, 
but the fidelity to this type is equally great. Synonymsexist; thatis, the 
same idea may be given by two or more utterly different signs. Buta 
given sign is made in a fixed and definite way. Finally the MSS. are, I 
think, later than the stones. Hence the root of the matter is the inter- 
pretation of the stones, or not so much their full interpretation as the 
discovery of a method of interpretation, which shall be sure. 
