502 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



course, as Leon de Rosny himself acknowledged. The word for sun, 

 kin, however, also denotes day, and it was proved, though somewhat 

 later, that this sign is also used with the latter meaning. 



In the preface to my first edition of the Dresden manuscript (1880) 

 I did not take occasion to express any opinion in regard to the meaning 

 of the signs, and yet that very edition was a great stimulus to me and 

 to others for further research. It was especially my acquaintance and 

 subsequent collaboration (in person and by letter) with my friend Doc- 

 tor Schellhas, of Berlin, that i3roved a source of manifold light to us 

 both. Thus we soon found ourselves studying the sign in which 

 Schellhas recognized the moon (and at the same time M. Pousse in 

 the publications of the Societe Americaine), the period of 20 days. 

 Both interpretations were correct. For, either the moon, being con- 

 sidered dead during the period of new moon, was assumed to be alive 

 only 20 days at a time, or the moon was conceived of as man, for in 

 the Maya language " vinak " means both 20 and, from the number of 

 fingers and toes, man. I was also on the point of finding a second 

 symbol for 20 (Erliiuterungen, page 12) which was positively recog- 

 nized as such by Doctor Seler in 1887. 



It Avas a source of special satisfaction to me that in April, 1885, I 

 was able to determine the sign for zero and soon afterward to dis- 

 cover the way in which the Mayas expressed the higher numbers, so 

 that they can now be read from zero up to millions. Upon this dis- 

 covery is based the largest part of my later researches. 



Closely connected with this discovery was that of the glyph for 

 the planet Venus, of the certainty of which we are constantly receiv- 

 ing fresh proof. 



Having already communicated all these signs in the year 188(), in 

 my Erliiuterungen, I can omit them here to save space, only remark- 

 ing that the attempt I made in that article to determine the signs for 

 the rest of the planets seems to me now, as it did then, very uncertain. 



Two papers of Doctor Schellhas should have special mention here. 

 Die Mayahandschrift der Koniglichen Bibliothek zu Dresden (1886, 

 in the Berlin Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologic, page 12) and Die Gotter- 

 gestalten der Maj^ahandschriften (1892, in the same journal, page 

 101). As it is not necessary to speak here of the merits of these 

 writings except so far as they are connected with the determination of 

 glyphs, I merely mention that in these articles Ave find, first, four 

 little signs interpreted beyond a doubt, which often appear as pre- 

 fixes to other glyphs. The office of these prefixes is to jilace the 

 glyphs in their respective relation to the four several cardinal points, 

 thus making it unnecessary to use the actual signs of these mentioned 

 above. But of much more importance is the second discovery due 

 to the efforts of Doctor Schellhas, viz, that about twent}^ different 

 glyphs are recognized as the designations of twenty different deities. 



