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of monosyllabic languages, as in that of the 

 Tartarian, Samoiede, Ostiack, and Kamt- 

 schadale tongues, the use of letters wherever it is 

 at present found, was introduced very late. It 

 seems indeed probable, that it was the Christian 

 sect of Nestorians, who communicated the 

 Stranghelo alphabet to the Oighours and the 

 Mantchou Tartars ; an alphabet, which in the 

 northern regions of Asia is still more recent, than 

 the Runic characters in the north of Europe. 

 We need not, therefore, suppose the communi- 

 cations between eastern Asia and America to 

 have been of very remote antiquity, in order to 

 comprehend why this latter part of the world 

 had not been instructed in an art, which for a 

 long series of ages was unknown except in 

 Egypt, in the Phoenician and Grecian colonies, 

 and in the small space lying between the 

 Mediterranean, the Oxus, and the Persian 

 gulf. 



When we examine the history of those nations 

 among which the use of letters is unknown, we 

 find almost every where, in both hemispheres, 

 that men have attempted to paint the objects 

 which strike their imagination, to represent 

 things oy indicating a part for the whole, to 

 compose pictures by grouping figures in symbo- 

 lical sketches, and thus to perpetuate the 

 memory of certain remarkable facts. The 

 Delaware Indian, in scouring the woods, carves 



