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January 26, 1846. 

 GEORGE PETRIE, Esq., Vice-President, in the Chair. 



The Rev. Samuel Butcher, F.T.C.D., read the first part 

 of a paper by the Rev. Dr. Hincks, on Hieroglyphics. 



This paper commences with a review of the progress made 

 in Egyptian learning, from the first discoveries of Drs, Young 

 and Champollion to the present day. It was alleged, that very 

 little progress had been made since the death of Champollion, 

 the only point established since that event being the principle 

 of peculiar letters and their complements, discovered by Dr. 

 Lepsius. The causes of the want of progress since this disco- 

 very were affirmed to be two : 1st, ignorance of another prin- 

 ciple, in some measure antagonistic to this, which was exten- 

 sively applied in Egyptian writing ; and, 2nd, an erroneous 

 mode of investigating the phonetic powers of the letters. This 

 consideration was postponed till the second part of the paper : 

 the third part to contain the results, as far as yet known, of an 

 investigation into the powers of the letters, conducted in the 

 manner that would be shewn, in the second part, to be most 

 likely to lead to the truth. 



The present part was devoted to the establishment of the 

 new principle above referred to. The principle is this : " the 

 phonoglyphs which compose the proper Egyptian alphabet 

 had names, which consisted of themselves with the addition 

 of certain expletive characters : and these names might be, 

 and often were, used in place of the single phonoglyphs. If, 

 then, a phonoglyph belonging to the alphabet be followed by 

 the expletive character which appertains to it, that expletive 

 may be, and, for the most part, should be, altogether neglected." 

 -It was added, that the single characters were occasionally, 

 though not frequently, used for their names, and the name 

 " Ptulmius" occurring so frequently on monuments of the 



