1871.] Notices of Books. 371 



pervades space as demonstrated to us by the passage of light 

 and heat, must be resistant to the motions of the heavenly 

 bodies, Mr. Lee would find a counteractant force in the 

 magnetism of the sun acting on the planets as diamagnetic 

 bodies, and he then suggests that as magne-crystals they would 

 in certain positions retard their velocities, thus causing the 

 varieties of speed at various portions of their orbits. Neither 

 for this nor for his theory that nitrogen is a compound of 

 C3H4O does he give the slightest proof beyond the mere fitness 

 of things. We must, therefore, decline to consider either proved, 

 although the atomic weight of the elements divided by the 

 reduced volume of the gas after combination does give the 

 specific gravity of nitrogen. 



The Moabite Stone, a fac simile of the Original Inscription, with 

 an English Translation, and a Historical and Critical Com- 

 mentary. By Christian D. Ginsbury, LL.D. London : 

 Longmans, 1870. 



This monograph not only contains, as its title-page describes, the 

 original inscription in fac simile, a translation, and a com- 

 mentary, but it also gives a transliteration of the inscription in 

 modern Hebrew characters, so that any one but moderately 

 instructed in that language can follow the text ; and it gives also 

 a history of the discovery and destruction of the stone itself, 

 together with six translations besides that of the editor, viz., 

 those of Professors Noeldeke, Haug, and Schlottman, and those 

 of MM. Ganneau, Neubauer, and Derenbourg. 



With the historical and theological value of this monument, 

 believed to be the most ancient extant inscription in this branch 

 of the Semitic languages, we have here nothing to do ; but we 

 may call attention to the extreme value of the inscription from 

 an alphabetic and linguistic point of view. Though it has been 

 long known from internal evidence as well as from tradition that 

 the main portion of the Greek Alphabet was derived from the 

 Phoenician, i.e., the old Hebrew; tradition, which had been right 

 in the main outline, declared that some few of the letters were 

 the addition of the Greeks themselves. This the inscription 

 proves to be untrue, for not only are the earliest forms of these 

 doubtful letters found in the Moabite alphabet, but they correspond 

 in position to the letters supposed to be peculiarly Greek. Thus 

 we can complete the pedigree of all our letters from the present day 

 back to the Syrian races, at least as early as the 10th century, B.C. 



Linguistically, also, the stone is valuable. It shows that the 

 language of Moab was less distinguished from that of Judea 

 than was that of Phoenicia — a very moderate Hebrew scholar 

 could read the inscription in many parts without difficulty. It 

 shows also that the traditional vowel points, which are known to 



