IKANSACTIU.NS Oi' SUCTION D.-i-I»Kl'T. ANTlIUOroLOGY. 621 



munications of Mr. Gardiner, II.M. Service, West Coast of Africa. Mr. Clarke did 

 not consider the signals to be as by dot and dash (• — ), but as due to the notes re- 

 presenting a consonant and vowel, and suited to the syllables of the native languages. 

 If a note conventionally represented a consonant, then the people -would so imder- 

 stand it, and make tlie syllable, the consonant being accompanied by its well-known 

 vowel ; there would rarely be three notes. He considered the term drnm-speaking 

 might be used, for tlie people so understood the several drums, Avliether employed 

 for signalling, fetish-drums, or for reciting praises of chiefs. The drummer was 

 employed by the mail steamers to commmiicate with the shore, and messages could 

 be sent two miles, and answers returned, and by relays they could be transmitted 

 twenty miles. He referred to the drum as a very ancient institution, and as giving 

 name to Cybele and drum-shaped moimtains, and hence to its adoption in ancient 

 and modern mythology. 



5. On a Manuscript, perliaps Khita, discovered hy Captain Gill in 

 Western China. By Hype Clarke. 



This manuscript was found by Captain W. Gill, R.E., in his late travels, at 

 Kudeu, near Li-Kiang. Mr. Clarke had examined and found that the characters 

 are allied to Khita (Hittite), Vei of W. Africa, Babylonian, Egyptian, and the ancient 

 Shwo-w6n of China, as well as to the Cypriote and Iberian alphabets, and notably the 

 Runes. He had identified a considerable number of characters. He considered this 

 as an outlying branch of the Khita class, and as atti'ibutable to the allied empire 

 which gave the name of Kitai (Cathay) to the region. The whole was a testimony 

 to the common distribution of ancient civilisation from one source throughout the 

 world. The numerals were arranged partly like the Egyptian and partly like the 

 Phceniciau. -I- (or -^ ) was repeatedly accompanied by a star », and by the number 

 seven in Egyptian order, 1 1 1 1 1 1 1, (4 and 3), like a group of seven pyramids in 

 Eg\'pt or Mexico. The mvthological reference he considered to be the god Saba. 

 4wasIIII,5 III II,6'III III, 8 IIII IIII,9 III III III. The MS. 

 is possibly a copy of sculptured inscriptions. There may perhaps be cartouches in 

 it. Besides characters, there are, as in Khita, animals and animals' heads in pairs 

 (totems), and, besides, the fish. 



6. Recent Doidits on Monosi/llabism in Philological Classification. 



By Hyde Claeke. 



Mr. Hyde Clarke pointed out that his determination, supported by Dr. Carl 

 Abel, &c., now showed that the Chinese, and Indo-Chinese, and Egyptian, and 

 Coptic, are not in their origin monosyllabic, but contain dissyllabic roots of 

 which the final vowel is elided. This rendered the term monosyllabic inapplicable 

 for a class of languages, or for an epoch in their history. The formation of words 

 in the Semitic languages was a simple handing down from the prehistoric period, 

 an application of difterentiation and of aflixes, in comparison -with which inflection 

 is a minor characteristic. The doctrine of an Aryan primitive language and civilisa- 

 tion is a simple imagination, the Aryan languages being like the others — developed 

 from the prehistoric epoch. No such thing as a single typical primeval language 

 had ever existed ; but, on the contrary, fifty primeval languages or more founded 

 on the same svstem, but with various words. 



