217 
; 
I deprive you of a happy analogy, I will imme- 
diately make you amends, by presenting you with 
a similar analogy in the method followed by the 
Hebi •ews ih tracing their manuscripts. When 
they cannot place the whole of a word in one 
line, they trace the first characters of it at the end 
of that line, and write it entire in the following ; 
so that these first characters are written twice, 
exactly as you have remarked in the Azteck ma- 
nuscripts, or rather paintings. This method 
has been followed in several editions of the Bible 
printed in Hebrew, so true it is, that the mind of 
man, notwithstanding the difference of ages and 
climate, is disposed to act in the same manner in 
similar circumstances, without needing the aid 
either of tradition or of example. 
I refer to this same principle the invention of 
the machine for the production of fire by the 
friction of two pieces of wood*. It was not 
Mercury, surely, who taught the use of Xhepyreia, 
or the igniariay to the Indians on the banks of 
the Orinoco. No Greek monument exhibits this 
custom of heroic times, while you twice give the 
representation of it in the hieroglyphical paint- 
ings of the Aztecks -f. Nevertheless it was fa- 
miliar to the ancient inhabitants of Greece ; and 
the figures you have published prove the accuracy 
* Vol. xiii, p. 225, 226. 
t Plate 16, No B, and })late 47. 
