762 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
Copy No. 3, now Fig. 1286, was used by Monsieur Jomard at Paris, 
1845. 
From this copy M. Jomard considered the letters to 
be Lybian, a language derived from the Phenician. At 
the right of the upper line one is omitted and another 
bears no resemblance to the original. The fifth char- 
acter of the second line is equally defective and objec- 
tionable. The second, fifth, and sixth of the lower line 
are little better. In the rude profile of a human face 
beneath an eye has been introduced and the slender 
cross lines attached to it have assumed the proportions 
of a dagger or sword, For the linguist or ethnologist 
this copy is entirely worthless. 
Copy No. 4, now Fig. 1287, was sent to Prof. Ratn, Copenhagen, 1843. 
Fic. 1286.—Grave creek stone. 
This is so imperfect and has so many additions that it is little better than a bur- 
lesque upon the original. No one will be surprised that the learned Danish anti- 
quarian could find in it no resemblance to the Runie, 
with which he was thoroughly familiar. 
A mere collocation of letters from various 
alphabets is not an alphabet. Words can not 
be formed or ideas communicated by that arti- 
fice. When a people adopts the alphabetical 
signs of another it adopts the general style 
of the characters and more often the charac- 
ters in detail. Such signs had already an 
arrangement into syllables and words which had a vocalic validity as 
—= 
Fic, 1287,—Grave creek stone. 
well as known significance. A jumble of letters from a variety of 
alphabets bears internal evidence that the manipulator did not have an 
intelligent meaning to convey by them, and did not comprehend the lan- 
guages from which the letters were selected. In the case of the Grave 
creek inscription the futile attempts to extract a meaning from it on 
the theory that it belongs to an intelligent alphabetic system show 
that it holds no such place. If it is genuine it must be treated as 
pictorial and ideographic, unless, indeed, it is cryptographic, which is 
not indicated. 
SECTION 2 
THE DIGHTON ROCK. 
In this connection some allusion must be made to the learned dis- 
cussions upon the Dighton rock before mentioned, p. 86. The originally 
Algonquian characters were translated by a Scandinavian antiquary as 
an account of the party of Thorfinn, the Hopeful. A distinguished 
Orientalist made out clearly the word ‘melek” (king). Another scholar 
triumphantly established the characters to be Seythian, and _ still - 
another identified them as Phenician. But this inscription has been 
so manipulated that it is difficult now to determine the original details. 
An official report made in 1830 by the Rhode Island Historical 
Society and published by the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, 
