14:8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



have been fixed by the labours of Messrs. Schmidt, Pierides and 

 others, who show that their sounds have little correspondence with 

 those expressed by similar Semito-European letters. Besides the 

 Cypriote, the only other alphabet of like character, the powers of 

 which are certainly known, is the Corean of far Eastern Asia, which 

 furnished me with phonetic values of forms belonging to the Etruscan 

 and other old Turanian syllabaries, as the Cypriote also had done. 

 From Corea, my researches extended in two dii'ections, the one west- 

 ward towa)-ds Siberia, the other eastward to Japan and this con- 

 tinent. To take the Japanese first, I am indebted to the kindness of 

 the Rev. John Edwards for the work of Ban Nobutomo on the 

 ancient Japanese alphabet. This, as he and other Japanese gram- 

 marians are agreed, is none other than the Corean, although, in the 

 various inscriptions, it presents many diverging forms. Crossing over 

 to America, the only traces of aboriginal alphabetic writing known 

 to me, which I accept as genuine, are the Grave Creek stone, a true 

 copy of which I owe to Colonel Whittlesey, the Bi'ush Creek stone, 

 of which Mr. Hilder, of St. Louis, sent me a photograph, and the 

 Davenport stones, for- the knowledge of which I am indebted to the 

 late Dr. Farquharson.^ Each of these contains chaxacters agreeing 

 with the Corean ; and the larger Davenport stone, by its semi- 

 hieroglyphic forms, suggests a Hittite origin. The connection of the 

 Mound Builders with the Aztec population of Mexico is conceded by 

 many ■ of the most scientific studentg of American antiquity. The 



system alluded to is that from -which the Cypriote syllabary was derived. Again (p. 32) he 

 coiitiiiues : " A comparison of the forms of the characters in the Cypriote syllabary with those 

 of the Hamathlte (Hittite) inscriptions seems to me to render it highly probable that both have 

 the same source." 



One of the earliest workers in the field of Cypriote Pateograiihy is Professor Moritz Schmidt, 

 of Jena. See his work " Die Insohrift von Idalion, und das kyprische Syllabar." Also many 

 papers in the Trans. Soey. Bib. Archseol. on the subject by Dr. Birch, Dr. Paul Schroeder, 

 Messrs. D. Pierides and 1. N. Hall In Germany the names of Deecke, Siegismund, and 

 Brandis, should be added to that of Schmidt. The Cypriote syllabary is accessible to most 

 readers in Cesnola's " Salaminia," where the values are given. 



8 As there has been much controversy In the United States regarding these inscriptions T 

 cannot allow this notice of them to pass without deprecating the tone of those who on a priori 

 grounds have assailed their genuineness and cast aspersions of the most serious kind upon the 

 characters of men whose only title to receive anything but respect at the hands of their fellows, 

 was their being connected with the finding of the relics. See an able defence of the Daven- 

 port Academy of Natural Science in connection with the tablets by Mr. Charles E. Putnam : 

 Elephant Pipes and Inscribed Tablets of the Mound Builders, Davenport, Iowa, 1885. I mean 

 no disrespect to American seholarsJiip when I say that there was not knowledge enougli in the 

 United States to forge these inscriptions. There are other so-called Mound Builder inscrip- 

 tions besides those for wliicli I vouch from internal evidence, of which I say nothing. 



