18 Mr Cull on the recent Progress of Ethnology. 



which creep into all MS. copied texts, either from the inad- 

 vertence or the wilfulness of the transcribers. The great 

 question is, Can we correctly read them? Some persons, 

 who are unacquainted with the philological methods of re- 

 search adopted in this inquiry, or whose philological know- 

 ledge is insufficient to enable them to appreciate those 

 methods, have called in question the results of the labours 

 of our distinguished investigators. But 1 believe that all 

 who have studied those methods are satisfied that we pos- 

 sess the philological key to open the immense and invaluable 

 stores of knowledge which are locked up in those languages. 

 Mr Layard's new book, just out, is the last work on ancient 

 Assyria. In it is a translation from these cuneiform inscrip- 

 tions abridged, the joint production of Mr Layard and Dr 

 Hincks, of the annals of King Sennacherib, by which he is 

 identified with the Sennacherib of Scripture (p. 159). 



Colonel Rawlinson wrote a paper last year, containing an 

 outline of Assyrian history, compiled from the inscriptions of 

 Nineveh : and also a sketch of the Assyrian Pantheon, de- 

 rived from the same source. To us, as Ethnologists, the im- 

 portant light thrown upon ancient geography, and the con- 

 nection of the people with their several localities, is of equal 

 interest to any of the Assyrian discoveries. The chronology 

 is of great value ; and these, together with the synchronisms 

 of Biblical history, are already clearing away some of the 

 Ethnographical darkness which yet enshrouds that interest- 

 ing part of Asia. 



Dr Hincks read a paper at the Belfast Meeting, in Sep- 

 tember last, of the British Association, " On the Ethnolo- 

 gical bearing of the recent discoveries in connection with 

 the Assyrian Inscriptions, " which claims our attention. He ' 

 considers the Assyrian language to belong to a family akin 

 to that of the Syro- Arabian languages hitherto known, rather 

 than to that family itself. Dr Hincks pointed out the fol- 

 lowing resemblances, or what the Assyrian had in common 

 with the Syro-Arabian family. 



It has verbal roots, which were normally triliteral, but of 

 which some letters might be mutable or evanescent, whence 

 arise different classes of irregular verbs. These roots admit 



