paintings was common to the Toltecks^ the 
Tlascaltecks, the Aztech s^ and several other 
tribes^ which^ since the seventh century of our 
era, appear successively on the elevated plain 
of Anahuac ; but we nowhere find alphabetic 
characters ; and we are led to think, that the 
progressive perfection of symbolic signs, and 
the facility with which objects are painted, 
had prevented the introduction of letters. W e 
may cite, in support of this opinion, the ex- 
ample of the Chinese, who during thousands 
of years have contented themselves with four- 
score thousand characters, composed of two 
hundred and fourteen keys, or radical hiero- 
glyphics : but do we not discover among the 
Egyptians the simultaneous use of an alpha- 
bet, and hieroglyphic writing, of which we have 
undoubted proof in the valuable rolls of papyrus 
found in the swathings of several mummies, 
and represented in M. Denon’s Picturesque 
Atlas *? 
Kalm-|- relates, in his Travels in America, 
that Mr. Verandrier had discovered, in 1746, 
in the savannahs of Canada, nine hundred lea- 
gues west of Montreal, a stone tablet fixed in a 
sculptured pillar, and on which were strokes that 
were taken for a Tartarian inscription. Several 
Jesuits at Quebec assured the Swedish traveller 
* Denon^'s Voyage en Egypt, PI. 136 et 137. 
t Kaim’s Reise, B, III, p. 416. 
