genius of man to find his master," though master and man be but servile instruments of fate. What a pitiful consolation! "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." But these neither see nor hear. On all the broad canopy of the star-bespangled sky, pencilled in rays of living light, is written, "God, infinite in wisdom, goodness, and power." These read backward, and find only the necessary action of unconscious physical force. In the provisions made for the moral government of man is written, "God, infinite in holiness, justice, and compassion." These read responsibility backward, and discover at last only that they ought to yield dutiful obedience to the laws of dead matter. Over the Cross, all radiant with the glory of the risen Sun of Righteousness, is written, "God, infinite in mercy, truth, and love." These only attempt to read backward and find nothing. Were I obliged to part with my intellectual and moral birthright, it would not be for such a mess of pottage. But I need not. There is no reason why I should falter in my faith in a supernatural intelligence, or my hope for future good. It would be suicidal folly, and foolish suicide; unreasoning blindness, and blindness against reason. Presumption is all in their favor; the requirements of humanity are all in their favor; the evidences of fact are all in their favor.

And may my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I fail to honor Him who so skillfully taught my fingers to work his will, and deny him who gave me the power of speech to speak his praise.

BROCKPORT, NEW YORK.

F. B. PALMer.

PROGRESS AND RESULT OF CUNEIFORM

DECIPHERMENT.

THE

THE history of the "Chosen People" was enacted on a grand geographical stage, embracing within its scope the three riversystems of the Tigro-Euphrates, the Jordan, and the Nile. All of them are interesting objects of study. Their geological phenomena, their climate, and their natural history, have always attracted scholars. They were the sources and centres of the great civilizations of antiquity. But they are most especially attractive because these facts of the history of man and nature are the ground-work and condition of God's revelation of his will to us.

From Ur of the Chaldees to Padan Aram, down the valleys of the Lebanon and the Jordan, across the wilderness of Shur to Egypt, and then from Egypt back to the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, the "People of God" may be said to have poured the stream of its national life as it ebbed and flowed from age to age. Their manners and customs, their laws and poetry are so intimately connected with natural phenomena and cotemporaneous history, that one cannot read his Bible intelligently who does not acquaint himself with auxiliary studies under these heads; and we are not surprised that M. Renan should exclaim in the presence of the sites of Bible story, "I had before my eyes a fifth gospel, mutilated, but still legible.” Great light is thrown by what has been already done; and much that is now dim, or altogether misunderstood, is waiting only for further

research to lift a corner of the veil which hides from us the truth. We are to remember, however, that in faith, as in business, "moderate speed is a sure help to all proceedings." So much has been done in all three fields, that one can hardly decide which is the most interesting; but since every traveller to sacred sites gives more or less attention to Egypt and Palestine, we propose in this discussion to gratify an "irresistible desire to penetrate to the regions beyond the Euphrates, to which history and tradition point as the birth-place of our race and of the civilization of the West."

The history of the rise, progress, and decay of the Chaldæans, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medians, and Persians; of their great conquests, their works of vast magnificence in irrigation, mural architecture, and the details of war; of their palaces, temples, and tombs, which, even in their ruins, "provoke the wonder and admiration of modern Europeans, familiar with all the triumphs of western art," has been recently rewritten from new materials by Canon George Rawlinson and François Lenormant. We propose, however, in the present paper to restrict our attention to the interesting and mysterious alphabetic character which has come to light after more than twenty centuries to add so much to our knowledge of these great peoples. We shall find that of this character there are many kinds, and that their study involves an inquiry into the progress of their discovery, publication, decipherment, and translation, as well as into the result which has accrued to philology, general history and biblical interpretation. Wherever the fuller treatment of this theme shall seem to demand more space than is allowed in this article, we hope by a copious bibliographical list to make further research easy.

From the highlands of Persia to the Mediterranean, travellers from early times have noticed in various places certain inscriptions formed by the different sizes, positions, and groupings of a single mark, resembling an arrow point or wedge, arranged in lines or columns separated by straight lines, and looking like a row of tacks scattered along on the stone or paper; some perpendicular, some horizontal, some inclined, and some crossing. We have accounts of travels to the sites and ruins where these are found, as far back as the twelfth century, as left by those who, having their attention pre-occupied by the architectural glories of Persepolis and Babylon, failed to see these humble witnesses. Among such travellers we need but cite the names of Benjamin of Tudela (1160); Josaphat Barbaro (1471); Eldred, an English merchant (1583); Rauvolf and Boeventing, at the close of the same century; Vincenzo Maria de St. Caterina de Sienna (1657), and Pere Emanuel de St. Albert (1660).

But in 1618 Garcia de Sylva Figuero, ambassador of Philip III, of Spain, visited Persepolis, and being the first to believe them to be inscriptions in a lost tongue, he had a line of them copied. He also guessed the reading to be from left to right. Pietro della Valle (1616-1623) gave in his "Travels in Persia," the most accurate account of them, and reasoned "pretty clearly as to the direction of the writing." In November, 1667, Mr. S. Flowers copied some of these characters, and brought them home. They were published by Francis Aston in 1693, in the "Transactions of the Royal Society." Sir John Chardin (1665-1670) was twice at Persepolis, and copied three complete groups of cuneiform writing. He declared it to be "writing and no hieroglyphics." Gemelli Carreri and Tavernier (1665) are said to have brought some short inscriptions. Little or no account was taken of them for a century. The travels of Le Bruyn and Pococke threw some additional light upon the mystery. M. Abbe de Beauchamp, the Pope's Vicar General at Bagdad (1780– 1790), examined the ruins of Babylon, and published a memoir on them in the "Journal des Savans;" but his most interesting relics are some Sassanian coins, published by M. Silvestre de Sacy, one in "Diverses Antiquités de la Perse," and inscriptions in Pehlvi from the rocks of Takt-i-Bostan.' André Michaux, a French botanist, sent an altar, found at Bagdad, to Paris, covered with inscriptions and bearing a large wedge on the top of it.2

The history of cuneiform decipherment in earnest begins with Carsten Niebuhr. Sent out by Frederick V, of Denmark, at the earnest solicitation of J. D. Michaelis, and through the mediation of Count Von Bernstoff, he and four others were instructed to gather from unvisited sites whatever knowledge of modern scenes and customs would throw light upon Old Testament interpretation. On the route Von Haven, the philologist, died at Mocha; Forskäl, the botanist, at Sana in Yemen; Baurenfeind, the draughtsman, on the passage to India; and Cramer, the physician, at Bombay; leaving him to return alone. On his way he visited, among other places, the ruins of Persepolis, and recovered those inscriptions whose humble significance had been hitherto eclipsed by her architectural glories, and which became for forty years the principal material of the decipherers. In addition, he discovered that there were three sorts of writing of different complexity; that a word broken at the right end of a line of the simpler sorts was finished at the left end of the line below it, proving the direction of the inscription to be from left to right; that the three sorts of writing were in parallel columns, and 2 Ouseley's Travels, I, 422.

1 Journ. Asiat, 1841.

N

therefore must be different transcripts of the same sentence; that the signs of the simplest kind contained never more than five wedges, and that there were about forty-two of these groups. He urged that the attention of scholars should be directed to the simplest sort. We shall have to divide the honor of the work between discoverers and publishers, decipherers and translators; and among discoverers to give the highest praise to Carsten Niebuhr. By further investigations the three kinds of cuneiform writing have been increased to seven or more; and as an intelligent study of the subject involves a comprehensive view, we subjoin a table containing their localities and subject-matter in somewhat the order of their historical decipherment:

ARIAN CUNEIFORM.-Alphabetic. 570-370 B. C.

3

4

2

I. Persian.-37 letters, 23 sounds. Cyrus to Artaxerxes Ochus. Rock Inscriptions: Great In. of Darius Hystaspes, at Behistun;' Tomb of Darius at Nakhsh-i-Rustum; Two of Darius and Xerxes near Hamadan; Of Xerxes at Van; Legend of Tarki north of Caucasus. Inscriptions on Buildings: Legend of Cyrus, at Murghab. (Pasargadae); Legends of Darius and Xerxes, and one of Artax. Ochus, at Persepolis; Two of Artaxerxes Mnemon at Susa; One of Darius on "Suez Stone;' Description de l' Egypte. I, 265; Pl. V. 29).

7

5

6

Inscriptions on Vases, etc: Of Xerxes on "Vase of Caylus," accompanied by Hieroglyphic Transcript; same on "Vase of Halicarnassus;" 10 On Fragment from Susa;" of Artax. Och. (?) on Vase of St. Marks." Inscriptions on Cylinders: Of Darius; " Of Arsaces, Lajard. Culte də Mithra. XXXII, Pl. I.

ANARIAN CUNEIFORM.-Syllabic.

II. Median (Turanian), 100 characters.

13

Localities: Second place in Trilingual at Persepolis, Hamadan, Behistun, Van, Suez Stone, and on vases of Caylus and St. Marks."

III. Elymaan, Susianian (Turanian).

The language of the Inscriptions of Susiana and Elam.15

IV. Medo-Assyrian, Armenian, (9th to 7th cent, B. C.)

16

At

Third place in the Trilingual of Xerxes, on the rocks of Van;' Dash-Tappeh, Keil-i-shin, Malatiyeh on Euphrates, and near Beyrut. V. Achaemenidan Babylonian.

Third column of all the trilingual tablets of Persia, key to the two following.

1 J. R. A. S., X. 2 J. R. A. S, XI. Lassen's Zeitschrift, VI.

Burnouf. "Mémoire Sur., etc.," 1836.

5 Ouseley's Travels, II.

J. R. A. S., X; Z. f. d. K. d. M., VI; Spiegel, 1862. 7 J. R. A. S., XV.

J. R. A. S., XI, 313.

10 Newton's Halicar. II.

9 Rec. d. Antiq., V. pl. XXX; J. R. A. S., XI.

11 Loftus, Chald. and Sus. 49.

13 Raw. 5 Mon. III, 227. 14 J. Soc. North Antiq., 1810-44, etc.

12 J. R. A. S., XI.

15 J. R. G. S., IX 34.

16 Schulz. Journ. Asiatique, II, Ser. IX; Nin. and Babylon. 387-403; J. R A. S., X.