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Greek age, was given as an example ; the two feathers in this 

 word representing, not, as has been heretofore supposed, an I 

 singly, but lU, the name of that letter ; while, on the other 

 hand, in the name " Philipus," the name lU is twice written 

 for the single vowel I. 



In order to establish this principle, it was first shewn that 

 it was adopted in transcribing foreign words, when written in 

 Egyptian characters, in the papyri published in fac-simile by 

 the Trustees of the British Museum, and mostly dated in 

 the reign of Rameses the Great, and his grandson. A num- 

 ber of such transcripts were produced. Some of them were 

 shewn not to represent the words that corresponded to 

 them, which were preserved in Hebrew characters in the 

 Old Testament, unless a quantity of, apparently, superfluous 

 characters were removed ; such were Ma-ru-ka-bu-ta for 

 both singular and plural of the name of a chariot, Mirkeveth; 

 I-u-ma for Yam, a sea j and Pu-ha-ru-ta for Phrat, the river 

 Euphrates. Others were shewn to be written at times with 

 those, apparently, superfluous characters, and at other times 

 without them, as Astaruta and Astart, the name of the Syrian 

 goddess ; K-sh, Kash and Kshi, varieties of the name of a 

 country which we know was Kush, the supplied vowel being 

 u and not a. It was observed, as an essential point in the 

 proof, that the vowel which was introduced in this seemingly 

 unnecessary manner, was always the same after each letter ; 

 some letters, however, take for their expletives ideagraphic 

 signs, which determine their pronunciation, and are thus equi- 

 valent to vowels. It was remarked that the letter may, in 

 such cases, have for its expletive either the ideagraphic 

 character, or the letter which it suggests or implies. This is 

 an apparent but not a real exception to the law proposed. 



It was shewn, secondly, that this principle was not con- 

 fined to foreign words, though applied to them more systema- 

 tically ; but that several pure Egyptian words were written 

 with superfluous characters. In order to meet the cavils 

 which it was anticipated would be raised against this position, 



