78 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



predetermination to interpret either their signs or their pictographs 

 on the principles of symbolism as understood or pretended to be 

 understood by its admirers, and as are sometimes properly applied 

 to Egyptian hieroglyphs, results in mooning mysticism. This was 

 shown by a correspondent who enthusiastically lauded the Dakota 

 Calendar (which is a mere figuration of successive occurrences in 

 the history of the people), as a numerical exposition of the great 

 doctrines of the Sun religion in the equations of time, and proved 

 to his own satisfaction that our Indians preserved hermeneutically 

 the lost geometric cultus of pre-Cushite scientists. He might as 

 well have claimed it to be the tabulated dynasties of pre-Adamite 

 kings. The chart was exhibited with the true interpretation 

 compared with the symbolic read from the letter. 



Another exhibition of this vicious practice was recently made in 

 the interpretation of an inscribed stone alleged to have been 

 unearthed near Zanesville, Ohio, an engraving of which was 

 exhibited. Two of the characters were supposed, in liberal exer- 

 cise of the imagination, to represent the A and £2 of the Greek 

 alphabet. At the comparatively late date when the arbitrary 

 arrangement of the letters of that alphabet had become fixed, the 

 initial and concluding letters might readily have been used to 

 represent respectfully the beginning and the end of any series or 

 number of things, and this figure of speech was employed in the 

 book of Revelations. In the attempted interpretation of the 

 inscription mentioned, which was hawked about to many scientific 

 bodies, and published over the whole country, the supposed alpha 

 and omega were assumed to constitute a universal as well as sacred 

 symbol for the everlasting Creator. The usual menu of Roman 

 feasts, commencing with eggs and ending with apples, was also 

 commonly known at the time when the book of Revelations was 

 written, and the phrase "a/? (too usque ad mala'' 1 was as appropriate 

 as " from alpha to omega" to express " from the beginning to the 

 end." In deciphering the stone it would, therefore, be as correct 

 in principle to take one of its oval and one of its round figures, 



