FIELD AND FOREST. II3 



One of these efforts to invent a language for the aboriginal races 

 of this country was brought to the notice of the National Museum a 

 few months ago by Mr. F. A. Reeve of Knoxville Tenn. It was a 

 small paper containing a wood cut showing an elongated outline with 

 undulating border enclosing some Egyptian hieroglyphic characters 

 and is represented at number 2 on the accompanying illustration 

 The original paper was much soiled and frayed from being kept folded 

 in the pocket, but it has been carefully photographed and all there is 

 of it is before the reader. Diligent enquiry has been made as to the 

 production of the original paper but no trace of Mr. Styles the alleged 

 discoverer, nor Messrs. Drake & Co., the printers, can be found in 

 Cincinnati or St. Louis. It is now known to have been in existance 

 since 1847, t0 have been seen by several persons and among others 

 by M. Jules Remy, who published a book of travels "a journey to, 

 Great Salt Lake City" in London 1861 wherein he gives an engraving, 

 of this plate, stating also that it was found in 1847 on the banks' of 

 the Ohio. He associates it on the same plate with copies of genuine 

 Indian picture writing from rock surfaces in Utah Territory and with- 

 out discrimination ascribes all of them alike to the aboriginal races. 

 He recoginizes the characters of our plate to be genuine hieroglyphics 

 and says, "it seems clear that we have here a real glyptic writing of 

 which some future Champollion may hereafter find the key and throw, 

 a clear light on the history of a race which seems to have attained^ 

 comparatively high degree of civilization." 



An examination of the cut shows the characters to be such as are, 

 found on Egyptian obelisks, sarcophagi, on cartouches,, on scarabei, 

 on inscribed slabs, in the catacombs and whenever the people from the 

 Pharaohs to the Ptolemies had an occasion to write any thing by which 

 they wished to communicate intelligence to posterity. But ours are not 

 written by hand as were those of the ancients, they are stamped 0% 

 printed from dies, or types which have been employed for publishing 

 books in this class of literature only since the days of Dr. Young and 

 M. Champollion at the beginning of this century. There is as much 

 difference between these characters and those on the Rosetta stone 

 which was sculptured by hand as between the manuscript of any one 

 individual and the typography of a printed page. The figures are 

 moreover stamped at random on the plate wherever the artist wished 

 to fill a vacant space, and not arranged in the old Egyptian manner 



