The lign-aloes is quite different from the medicinal aloes. The word is used in the Bible (Numb. xxiv. 6), but as the trees usually supposed to be meant by this word are not native in Syria, it has been suggested that the LXX. reading in which the word does not occur is to be preferred. Lign-aloe is a corruption of the Lat. lignum-aloe, a wood, not a resin. Dioscorides refers to it as agallochon, a wood brought from Arabia or India, which was odoriferous but with an astringent and bitter taste. This may be Aquilaria agallochum, a native of East India and China, which supplies the so-called eagle-wood or aloes-wood, which contains much resin and oil.

ALOIDAE, or ALOADAE, i.e. Otus and Ephialtes, in ancient Greek legend, the twin-sons of Poseidon by Iphimedeia, wife of Aloeus. They were celebrated for their extraordinary stature and strength. According to Homer (Od. xi. 305). they made war upon the Olympian gods and endeavoured to pile Pelion upon Ossa in order to storm heaven itself; had they reached the age of manhood, their attempt would have been successful, but Apollo destroyed them before their beards began to grow. In the Iliad (v. 365) Ares is imprisoned by them, but delivered by Hermes. Apollodorus says that they succeeded in piling Pelion upon Ossa. Another story is that they were presumptuous enough to seek Artemis and Hera in marriage, and that Artemis caused them to slay each other unintentionally on the island of Naxos, where they were afterwards worshipped as heroes. In punishment for their offences they were bound back to back with snakes to a pillar in the lower world (Hyginus, Fab. 28). The Aloidae (here connected with aloe, threshing-floor) represent the spirits of the fertile earth and agriculture, conceived of by the Greeks as engaged in combat with the Olympian gods. In contrast to these legends, Pausanias tells us that they were regarded as the first to worship the Muses on Mt. Helicon, while Diodorus represents them as historical personages, princes of Thessaly, who defeated the Thracians in Strongyle, i.e. Naxos, where they made themselves rulers, and subsequently slew one another in a quarrel.

ALOMPRA, ALOUNG P'HOURA (1711—1760), founder of the last Burmese dynasty, was born in 1711 at Motshobo, a small village 50 m. north-west of Ava. Of humble origin, he had risen to be chief of his native village when the invasion of Burma by the king of Pegu in 1752 gave him the opportunity of attaining to the highest distinction. The whole country had tamely submitted to the invader, and the leading chiefs had taken the oaths of allegiance. Alompra, however, with a more independent spirit, not only contrived to regain possession of his village, but was able to defeat a body of Peguan troops that had been sent to punish him. Upon this the Burmese, to the number of a thousand, rallied to his standard and marched with him upon Ava, which was recovered from the invaders before the close of 1753. For several years he prosecuted the war with uniform success. In 1754 the Peguans, to avenge themselves for a severe defeat at Keoum-nuoum, slew the king of Burma, who was their prisoner. The son of the latter claimed the throne, and was supported by the tribe of Quois; but Alompra resisted, being determined to maintain his own supremacy. In 1755 Alompra founded the city of Rangoon. In 1757 he had established his position as one of the most powerful monarchs of the East by the invasion and conquest of Pegu. Before a year elapsed the Peguans revolted; but Alompra, with his usual promptitude, at once quelled the insurrection. The Europeans were suspected of having instigated the rising, and the massacre of the English at Negrais in October 1759 is supposed to have been approved by Alompra after the event, though there is no evidence that he ordered it. Against the Siamese, who were also suspected of having abetted the Peguan rebels, he proceeded more openly and severely. Entering their territory, he was just about to invest the capital when he was seized with an illness which proved fatal on the 15th of May 1760. Alompra is one of the most remarkable figures in modern Oriental history. To undoubted military genius he added considerable political sagacity, and he deserves particular credit for his efforts to improve the administration of justice. His cruelty and deceitfulness were faults common to all Eastern despots.

ALONE. This adjective or adverb requires no definition for its meaning of "by oneself'' or "solitary''; but its etymological history, as simply a combination of the words "all'' and "one'' is rather curious (compare the Ger. allein.) "Lone'' is merely a clipped form of the word, and so "lonely.'' The New English Dictionary traces the English word back to the year 1300.

ALORA, a town of southern Spain in the province of Malaga; 17 m. W.N.W. of Malaga, on the right bank of the river Guadalhorce, and on the Cordova-Malaga railway. Pop. (1900) 10,525. Alora, which is an ancient and picturesque town, with several Moorish ruins, occupies an outlying hill of the Sierra de Tolox, and overlooks a fertile valley where maize, sugar-cane and datepalms are cultivated. There are hot sulphurous springs in the town, which has also a fine climate; and many of the wealthy families from Malaga reside here in summer. Brandy distilling is, after agriculture, the chief local industry.

ALOST (Flem. Aalst), a town of Belgium, in the province of East Flanders, situated on the left bank of the Dender; the ancient capital of what was called Imperial Flanders. Pop. (1897) 28,771; (1904) 31,655. Flanders in the feudal period was a fief of the king of France—-the count of Flanders being the first of the twelve peers of France; but there was a small strip extending from Alost to the isles of Zeeland, designated Imperial Flanders, of which the count was the vassal of the Holy Roman emperor. Attached to the hotel de ville is a fine belfry of the 15th century, but unfortunately it was seriously damaged by fire in 1879. In the church of St Martin, dating from 1498 but unfinished, is a fine Rubens. The subject is St Roch, the patron saint of lepers, and the colouring of the scaly skin of the leper in the forefront of the picture is generally regarded as one of the master's most striking effects. The work was pointed to the order of the Brewers' Gild in (it is said) eight days. It was outside Alost that William Clito, grandson of William the Conqueror, who was then endeavouring to establish his claims as count of Flanders, was mortally wounded in 1128. Of all the claims Alost possesses to fame perhaps the most remarkable is that Thierry Maartens (c. 1474) set up there one of the first printing presses in Europe. Alost is famous to-day for its hop gardens and linen-bleaching establishments. The meadows south of Alost are often covered with the linen undergoing the process of bleaching, which makes them assume the aspect of a whitish-blue carpet.

ALP. To the Swiss dwellers in the plains the term "the Alps'' (q.v.) signifies the high snowy mountains which they see on the horizon, but to the dwellers in the valleys which nature has carved in the sides of those high mountains, the word alp means exclasively the summer pastures situated on the slopes above the valley, though below the snow-line. In fact such pastures are essential to the inhabitants of pastoral alpine districts, for the fodder to be obtained in the valley itself would not suffice to support the number of cattle which are required to afford sustenance to the inhabitants. Such mountain pastures, made use of only during the summer months, are of almost immemorial antiquity, cases occurring in 739, 868 and 999, while they are found in all parts of the Alpine chain. In France and Italy the system is badly managed, as also in Tirol (where the local name is Almen), where, too, these pastures have in the course of years been largely alienated by the valley inhabitants, and belong to large villages or small towns almost in the plains. But in Switzerland, and especially in the German-speaking mountain districts, the alps are the centre round which the entire pastoral life of the inhabitants turns. It is reckoned that in that country there are now about 4778 alps in ail, the capital value of which is put at rather over L. 3,000,000. Of these alps about 45% are owned by the communes (exclusively or jointly) and 54% by individuals, the remaining 1% being the property of the state or a few great monasteries. In the case of the alps belonging to the Swiss communes, it must be borne in mind that "commune'' here does not signify either Einwohnergemeinden or Burgergemeinden, but a special class called Alpgemeinden (for instance in the well-known valley of Grindelwald there is one Einwohnergemeinde, but seven Alpgemeinden.) These Alpgemeinden are composed of the persons who have a right to send cattle up to any particular alp in summer, this right being attached (in different places) either to certain plots of ground in the valley or certain houses in the Village, or to certain persons. In any case the owners of an alp fix the greatest number of cows which it can support during the summer without being permanently damaged. The plot of ground which can support a single cow (or 2 heifers, 3 calves or sheep, 4 pigs or 8 goats) is called a Kuhstoss (of which there are 270,389 in Switzerland), and it is in these terms that the productiveness of the alp is reckoned. Sometimes a particular alp, or a portion of it, is reserved exclusively to heifers and calves, or to goats (in this case it is the loftier portion). On each alp there are several sets of huts wherein live the cow-herds and cheese-makers (the latter are called Sennen or Fruitiers), the cattle being generally left in the open. The cattle, with their attendants, shift from one to the other of these sets of huts, between the end of June and the end of September, making but one sojourn at the highest huts, but two at the lower. The proper name for these nuts is Sennhutten or chalets, but the latter term is incorrectly applied also to houses in the village below. The milk given each day by each cow is entered in a book, and then made into butter and cheese. the cow-herds and cheese-makers having the right to a certain proportion of milk, butter and cheese for their own sustenance, and receiving a small sum per head of cattle for looking after them. At the end of the season the net amount of cheese produced by milk from each cow is handed over to the owner of that particular cow, and is carried down by him to his home in the valley from the hut (a small building on four stone legs to secure the contents from mice) wherein the cheeses have been stored since they were made—this hut is called a Speicher. As the owners of Kuhstossen may exchange them provisionally for others on another alp, or may hire them out (they can only sell them with the plot or house to which they are attached), the persons who in any given summer actually send cows up to an alp (these form the Besetzerschaft) need not necessarily be absolutely identical with the true owners of these rights or Besitzerschaft. Hay is never mown on the true alps save in spots which are not easily accessible to cattle (in very high spots it belongs to the mower, and is then called Wildheu), but hay-crops are made on the Mayens or Voralpen, the lowest pastures, situated between the homesteads and the true alps; these Voralpen are individual (not communal) property, though probably in olden days cut out of the true Alpen. In the winter the cattle consume the hay mown on these Voralpeii (which, to a certain extent, are grazed in late spring and early autumn, that is, before and after the summer sojourn on the alps), either living in the huts on the Foralpen while they consume it, or in the stable attached to the dwelling-houses in the village; in the barn is stored the hay mown on the homestead and on the meadows near the village, which may belong to the owner of the cattle. The whole system is well organized and is well understood by the natives, though not always by strangers who visit the Alps in summer.

See John Ball, Hints and Notes for Travellers in the Alps (article x., especially pp: lvii.-lxv.); new edition, London, 1899; Felix Anderegg, Illustriertes Lehrbuch fur die gesamte schweiz. Alpwirtschaft (Bern, 1897—1898); the Schweiz-Alpstatistik (each volume devoted to the alps of a single Swiss canton); and A. v. Miaskowski's two books, Die schweiz. Allmend (Leipzig, 1879), and Die Verfassung der Land-, Alpen- und Forstwirtschaf der Schweiz (Basel, 1878). (W. A. B. C.)

ALPACA, one of two domesticated breeds of South American camel-like ungulates, derived from the wild huanaco or guanaco. Alpacas are kept in large flocks which graze on the level heights of the Andes of southern Peru and northern Bolivia, at an elevation of from 14,000 to 16,000 ft. above the sea-level, throughout the year. They are not used as beasts of burden like llamas, but are valued only for their wool, of which the Indian blankets and ponchos are made. The colour is usually dark brown or black and the coat of great length, reaching nearly to the ground. In stature the alpaca (Lama huanacos pacos) is considerably inferior to the llama, but has the same unpleasant habit of spitting.

In the textile industries "alpaca'' is a name given to two distinct things. It is primarily a term applied to the wool, or rather hair, obtained from the Peruvian alpaca. It is, however, more broadly applied to a style of fabric originally made from the alpaca wool but now frequently made from an allied type of wool, viz. mohair, Iceland, or even from lustrous English wool. In the trade, distinctions are made between alpacas and the several styles of mohairs and lustres, but so far as the general purchaser is concerned little or no distinction is made.

The four species of indigenous South American wool-bearing animals are the llama, the alpaca, the guanaco and the vicuna. The llama and the alpaca are domesticated; the guanaco and the vicuna run wild. Of the four the alpaca and the vicuna are the most valuable wool-bearing animals: the alpaca on account of the quality and quantity, the vicuna on account of the softness, fineness and quality of its wool. In the early days of the 19th century, the usual length of alpaca staples appears to have been about 12 in., this being a three years' growth; but to-day the length is little more than about half this, i.e. a one to two years' growth, although from time to time longer staples are to be found. The fleeces are sorted for colour and quality by skilled native women. The colour of the greater proportion of alpaca imported into the United Kingdom is black and brown, but there is also a fair proportion of white, grey and fawn. It is customary to mix these colours together, thus producing a curious ginger-coloured yarn, which upon being dyed black in the piece takes a fuller and deeper shade than can be obtained by piece-dyeing a solid-coloured wool. In physical structure alpaca is somewhat akin to hair, being very glossy, but its softness and fineness enable the spinner to produce satisfactory yarns with comparative ease.

The history of the manufacture of this wool into cloth is one of the romances of commerce. Undoubtedly the Indians of Peru employed this fibre in the manufacture of many styles of fabrics for centuries before its introduction into Europe as a commercial product. The first European importations would naturally be into Spain. Spain, however, transferred the fibre to Germany and France. Apparently alpaca yarn was spun in England for the first time about the year 1808. It does not appear to have made any headway, however, and alpaca wool was condemned as an unworkable material. In 1830 Benjamin Outram, of Greetland, near Halifax, appears to have again attempted the spinning of this fibre, and for the second time alpaca was condemned. These two attempts to use alpaca were failures owing to the style of fabric into which the yarn was woven—-a species of camlet. It was not until the introduction of cotton warps into the Bradford trade about 1836 that the true qualities of alpaca could be developed in the fabric. Where the cotton warp and mohair or alpaca weft plain-cloth came from is not known, but it was this simple yet ingenious structure which enabled Titus Salt (q.v.), then a young Bradford manufacturer, to utilize alpaca successfully. Bradford is still the great spinning and manufacturing centre for alpacas, large quantities of yarns and cloths being exported annually to the continent and to the United States, although the quantities naturally vary in accordance with the fashions in vogue, the typical "alpaca-fabric'' being a very characteristic "dress-fabric.''

The following statistics, taken from Hooper's Statistics of the Woollen and Worsted Trades of the United Kingdom, give an idea of the extent of the trade in yarns and fabrics of the alpaca type; unfortunately statistics for alpaca alone are not published.

Alpaca, Vicuna, and Llama Wool imported into the United Kingdom.

Year Peru Chile1 lb L. lb L. 1854 1,247,015 124,946 15,573 1,557 1860 2,334,048 263,635 520,402 58,443 1870 3,324,454 388,969 563,782 65,996 1880 1,412,365 98,644 890,627 64,621 1890 3,114,336 190,703 564,606 30,694 1900 4,236,566 205,839 1,148,694 51,116 1902 5,038,998 259,927 1,028,171 47,610 1905 2,301,522 119,321 2,302,650 112,367

Note.—in 1840 the imports into, exports from, and consumed in the United Kingdom of mohair, alpaca, vicuna, &c., amounted to

Exports of Mohair and Alpaca Yarns for 1905.

Russia . . . 1,288,800 lb. . . . L. 168,596 Germany. . . 9,851,200 '' . . . 1,145,795 Belgium. . . . 316,400 '' . . . 40,409 France . . . 2,006,700 '' . . . 223,605

Exports of Alpaca from the United Kingdom to the United States.

1881 . L. 1,256 1900 . .L. 30,631 1890 . . . — 1905 . . 4,954

Owing to the success in the manufacture of the various styles of alpaca cloths attained by Sir Titus Salt and other Bradlord manufacturers, a great demand for alpaca wool arose, and this demand could not be met by the native product, for there never seems to have been any appreciable increase in the number of alpacas available. Unsuccessful attempts were made to acclimatize the alpaca goat in England, on the European continent and in Australia, and even to cross certain English breeds of sheep with the alpaca. There is, however, a cross between the alpaca and the llama—a true hybrid in every sense—producing a material placed upon the Liverpool market under the name "Huarizo.'' Crosses between the alpaca and vicuna have not proved satisfactory.

The preparing, combing, spinning, weaving and finishing of alpacas and mohairs are dealt with under WOOL. (A. F. B.)

1 Grown in Peru but shipped from Valparaiso.

ALP ARSLAN, or AXAN, MAHOMMED BEN DA'UD (1029-1072), the second sultan of the dynasty of Seljuk, in Persia, and great-grandson of Seljuk, the founder of the dynasty, was born in the year A.D. 1029 (421 of the Hegira). He assumed the name of Mahommed when he embraced the Mussulman faith; and on account of his military prowess he obtained the surname Alp Arslan, which signifies "a valiant lion.'' He succeeded his father Da'ud as ruler of Khorasan in 1059, and his uncle Togrul Bey as sultan of Oran in 1063, and thus became sole monarch of Persia from the river Oxus to the Tigris. In consolidating his empire and subduing contending factions he was ably assisted by Nizam ul-Mulk, his vizier, one of the most eminent statesmen in early Mahommedan history. Peace and security being established in his dominions, he convoked an assembly of the states and declared his son Malik Shah his heir and successor. With the hope of acquiring immense booty in the rich church of St Basil in Caesarea, the capital of Cappadocia, he placed himself at the head of the Turkish cavalry, crossed the Euphrates and entered and plundered that city. He then marched into Armenia and Georgia, which, in 1064, he finally subdued. In 1068 Alp Arslan invaded the Roman empire. The emperor Romanus Diogenes, assuming the command in person, met the invaders in Cihcia. In three arduous campaigns, the two first of which were conducted by the emperor himself while the third was directed by Manuel Comnenus, the Turks were defeated in detail and finally (1070) driven across the Euphrates. In 1071 Romanus again took the field and advanced with 100,000 men, including a contingent of the Turkish tribe of the Uzes and of the French and Normans, under Ursel of Bahol, into Armenia. At Manzikert, on the Murad Tchai, north of Lake Van, he was met by Alp Arslan; and the sultan having proposed terms of peace, which were scornfully rejected by the emperor, a battle took place in which the greeks, after a terrible slaughter, were totally routed, a result due mainly to the rapid tactics of the Turkish cavalry. Romanus was taken prisoner and conducted into the presence of Alp Arslan, who treated him with generosity, and terms of peace having been agreed to, dismissed him, loaded with presents and respectfully attended by a military guard. The dominion of Alp Arslan now extended over the fairest part of Asia; 1200 princes or sons of princes surrounded his throne and 200,000 warriors were at his command. He now prepared to march to the conquest of Turkestan, the original seat of his ancestors. With a powerful army he advanced td the banks of the Oxus. Before he could pass the river with safety it was necessary to subdue certain fortresses, one of which was for several days vigorously defended by the governor, Yussuf Kothual, a Kharizmian. He was, however, obliged to surrender and was carried a prisoner before the sultan, who condemned him to a cruel death. Yussuf, in desperation, drew his dagger and rushed upon the sultan. Alp Arslan, the most skilful archer of his day, motioned to his guards not to interfere and drew his bow, but his foot slipped, the arrow glanced aside and he received the assassin's dagger in his breast. The wound proved mortal, and Alp Arslan expired a few hours after he received it, on the 15th of December 1072

See Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, edited by J. B. Bury (1898), vi. pp. 235 et seq., and authoriries there cited.

ALPENA, a city and the county seat of Alpena county, Michigan, U.S.A., on Thunder Bay, a small arm of Lake Huron, at the mouth of Thunder Bay river, in the N.E. part of the lower peninsula. Pop. (1890) 11,283; (1900) 11,802, of whom 4193 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 12,706. It is served.by the Detroit & Mackinac railway and by steamboat lines to Detroit and other ports. The city is built on sandy ground on both sides of the river and has a good harbour, which has been considerably improved by the Federal government; in 1007 the maximum draft that could be carried over the shallowest part of the channel was 14 ft. There is good farming land in the vicinity and Alpena has lumber and shingle mills, pulp works, Portlald cement manufactories and tanneries; in 1905 the city's factory products were valued at $2,905,263. In 1906 the commerce of the port, chiefly in lumber, cement, coal, cedar posts and ties, fodder and general merchandise, was valued at $3,018,894. Alpena occupies the site of an Indian burying-ground. A tradingpost was established here in 1835, but the permanent settlement dates from 1858; in 1871 Alpena was chartered as a city.

ALPENHORN, ALPHORN, a musical instrument, consisting of a natural wooden horn of conical bore, having a cup-shaped mouthpiece, used by mountaineers in Switzerland and elsewhere. The tube is made of thin strips of birchwood soaked in water until they have become quite pliable; they are then wound into a tube of conical form from 4 to 8 ft. long, and neatly covered with bark. A cup-shaped mouthpiece carved out of a block of hard wood is added and the instrument is complete. The alpenhorn has no lateral openings and therefore gives the pure natural harmonic series of the open pipe. The harmonics are the more readily obtained by reason of the small diameter of the bore in relation to the length. An alpenhorn made at Rigi-Kulm, Schwytz, and now in the South Kensington Museum, measures 8 ft. in length and has a straight tube. The well-known Ranz des Paches is the traditional melody of the alpenhorn, which has been immortalized by Beethoven in the finale of the Pastoral Symphony, where the music is generally rendered by a cor aniglais (q.v..) Rossini has introduced the melody into his opera William Tell. Wagner, in the third act of Tristan and Isolde, was not entirely satisfied with the tone quality of the cor anglais for representing the natural pipe of the peasant. Having in his mind the timbre of the alpenhorn, he had a wooden horn made for him with one valve only and a small pear-shaped bell, which is used at Bayreuth (see HONZTROMPETE.) The Swiss alpenhorn varies in shape according to the locality, being curved near the bell in the Bernese Oberland. Michael Praetorius mentions the alpenhorn under the name of holzerni trummet in Syniagma Musicum (Wittenberg, 1615—1619). (K. S.)

ALPES MARITIMES, a department in the S.E. of France, formed in 1860 out of the county of Nice, to which were added the districts of Grasse (formerly in the department of the Var) and of Mentone (purchased from the prince of Monaco). Pop. (1906) 334,007. It is bounded N.E. and E. by Italy, S. by the Mediterranean Sea, and W. by the departments of the Var and the Basses Alpes, while its northern extremity forms a sharp angle between France and Italy. Its area is 1444 sq. m., its greatest length is 59 m. and its greatest breadth 48 1/2 m. It is composed of the valley of the Var river (which is all but completely within this department), together with those of its chief affluents, the Tinee and the Vesubie. The region of Grasse is hilly, but the rest of the department is mountainous, its loftiest point being the Mont Tinibras (9948 ft.) at the head of the Tinee valley. Two singular features of the frontier of the department towards the east are only to be explained by historical reasons. One is that the ce:itral bit of the Roja valley is French, while the upper and lower bits of this valley are Italian; the reason is that those bits which are now Italian formed part of the county of Ventimiglia, and the central bit part of the county of Nice, which alone became French in 1860. The result is that the Italians are now unable to build a railway from Culeo by the Col de Tenda and down the Roja valley direct to Ventimiglia. The other strange feature is that from near Isola in the upper Tinee valley southwards the political frontier does not coincide with the physical frontier, or the main watershed of the Alpine chain; the reason (it is said) is that in 1860 all the higher valleys of the Maritime Alps (on both sides of the watershed) were expressly excepted from the treaty of cession, in order that Victor Emmanuel II. might retain his right of chamois hunting in these parts. The department is divided into three arrondissements (Nice, Grasse and Puget Thenicrs), 27 cantons and 155 communes. It forms the bishopric of Nice (the first bishop certainly known is mentioned at the end of the 4th century), which till 1792 was in the ecclesiastical province of Embrun, then (1802) in that of Aix en Provence, next in that of Genoa (1814),and lilally (1860) in that of Aix again. Its chief town is Nice. The broad-gauge railways in the department cover 56 m., including the line along the coast, while there are also 82 m. of narrow-gauge railways. The chief industries are distilleries for perfumes and manufacture of olive oil, of pottery and of tiles, besides a great commerce in cut flowers. To foreigners the department is best known for its health resorts, Nice, Cannes, Mentone, Antibes and Beaulieu, while other important towns are Grasse and Puget Theniers. (W. A. B. C.)

ALPHA and OMEGA (A and O), the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, corresponding to the Aleph and Taw of the Hebrew. They are used as a designation of Himself by the speaker in Rev.i.8; xxi. 6; xxii. 13. The first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet are used in Rabbinic writings in a similar way. We find also "the seal of God is Emeth,'' Emeth (truth) being composed of the first, middle and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. God is thus represented as the beginning, middle and end of all things (see the Jewish Encyclopaedia, s.v.).

ALPHABET (see also WRITING.) By the word alphabet, derived from the Greek names for the first two letters—alpha and beta—of the Greek alphabet, is meant a series of conventional symbols each indicating a single sound or combination of sounds. The ideal alphabet would indicate one sound by one symbol, and not more than one sound by the same symbol. Symbols for a combination of sounds are not necessary, though they may be convenient as abbreviations. In the writing of some languages, e.g. Sanskrit, such abbreviations are carried to an extreme; in most Greek MSS. also they are of very frequent occurrence. These contractions, however, may prove too great a strain upon the eyesight or the memory, and thus become a hindrance instead of a help. This was apparently the case in Greek, for though the early printers cast types for all the contractions of the Greek MSS. these have now with one consent been given up. A consonant like x can only be regarded as an abbreviation; it expresses nothing that cannot as well be expressed by ks or gz, both of which combinations in different situations it may represent (see X). No alphabet corresponds exactly to the ideal which we have postulated, nor if it did, would it continue long so to do, as the sounds of most languages are continually changing. Hence in the case of dead languages or past forms of living languages, it is often very difficult to define with precision what the sounds of the past epoch were. The study of the history of English pronunciation occupied the late Dr A. J. Ellis for a large part of his life, and the results fill five large volumes. The sounds which are most difficult to define exactly are the vowels; a great variety may be indicated by the same symbol. In the New English Dictionary no fewer than thirteen different nuances of vowel sound are distinguished under the symbol A alone. In English, moreover, the vowel sounds tend to become diphthongs, so that the symbol for the simple sound tends to become the symbol for that combination which we call a diphthong. Thus the long i in ride, wine, &c., has become the diphthong ai, and the name of the symbol I is itself so pronounced. In familiar, if vulgar, dialects, A tends in the same direction. In the "cockney'' dialect, really the dialect of Essex but now no less familiar in Cambridge and Middlesex, the ai sound of i is represented by oi as in toime, "time,'' while a has become ai in Kate, pane, &c. In, all southern English o becomes more rounded while it is being pronounced, so that it ends with a slight u sound. In the vulgar dialect already mentioned, the sound begins as a more open sound than in the cultivated pronunciation, so that no is really pronounced as naou. It is clear, therefore, that the best alphabet would not long indicate very precisely the sounds which it was intended to represent. See PHONETICS.

But the history of the alphabet shows that at no time has it represented any European language with much precision, because it was an importation adapted in a somewhat rough and ready fashion to represent sounds different from those which it represented outside Europe. Wherever the alphabet may have originated, there seems no doubt that its first importation in a form closely resembling that with which we are familiar in modern times was from the Phoenicians to the Greeks. The Phoenicians were certainly using it with freedom in the 9th century B.C.; with so much freedom, indeed, that they must have been in possession of it for a considerable time before we can trace it. With the materials available up to August 1910 it would be idle here to attempt to trace its earlier history. Great discoveries in Cappadocia, Assyria and Egypt were then only at their beginning, and any statement was liable to be quickly disproved by the appearance of new evidence. The prevalent theory, universally accepted till a few years ago, was that of Vicomte Emmanuel de Ronge, first propounded to the Academie des Inscriptions in 1859, but unnoticed by the world at large till republished, after derouge's death, by his son in 1874. According to this view the alphabet was borrowed by the Phoenicians from the cursive (hieratic) form of Egyptian hieroglyphics. The resemblances between some Egyptian symbols and some symbols of the Phoenician alphabet are striking; in other cases the differences are no less remarkable. As a matter of fact the Egyptians might have passed about thirty-five centuries B.C. from the picture writing of hieroglyphs to genuine alphabetic signs.1 They did not, however, profit by their discovery, because, amongst the Egyptians, writing was clearly a mystery in both senses—only possible at that period for masters in the craft, and also something, like the writing of medical prescriptions at the present day in Latin, which was not to be made too easily intelligible to the common people. At all periods, moreover, hieroglyphic writing was a branch of decorative art, and it may have been that the ancient Egyptian, like the modern Turk, resented too much lucidity, and liked his literary compositions to be veiled in a certain obscurity. The alphabet devised by the Egyptians consisted of twenty-four letters. Egyptologists are at variance on the question whether this alphabet was the original, or had any influence upon the development of the Phoenician alphabet. "With the papyrus paper,'' says Professor Breasted,2 "the hand customarily written upon it in Egypt now made its way into Phoenicia, where before the 10th century B.C. it developed into an alphabet of consonants, which was quickly transmitted to the Ionian Greeks and thence to Europe.'' On the other hand, Professor Spiegelberg,3 writing soon after Professor Breasted, says that investigation has not as yet furnished proof that the Phoenician alphabet is of Egyptian origin, though he admits that in some respects the development of the two alphabets, both without vowel signs, is curiously parallel.

The most recent view is that of Dr A. J. Evans, who argues ingeniously that the alphabet was taken over from Crete by the "Cherethites and Pelethites'' or Philistines, who established for themselves settlements on the coast of Palestine.4 From them it passed to the Phoenicians, who were their near neighbours, if not their kinsfolk. Symbols like the letters of the alphabet have been found in European soil painted upon pebbles belonging to a stratum between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic age.5 This was in France at Mas d'Azil on the left bank of the Arize. Elsewhere several series of such symbols resembling inscriptions have been found scratched on bones of the same period.6 For the history of writing these may be important, but for the history of the alphabet, as we know it, they are not in question. The alphabet may have originated as Dr Evans thinks, but at present the proof is not conclusive. The Greek names of the letters, their forms, and the order of the symbols show that the Greek alphabet as we know it must have been imported by or from a Semitic people, and there is no evidence to contradict ancient tradition that this people was the Phoenicians. The view propounded by Deecke7 in 1877, that the Phoenician alphabet had developed out of the late Assyrian cuneiform, never met with much acceptance and has really no evidence in its favour.

The earliest alphabetic document which can be dated with comparative certainty is the famous Moabite stone, which was discovered in 1868, and after a controversy between rival claimants which led to its being broken in pieces by the Arabs, ultimately reached the Louvre, where in a restored form it remains. The long inscription upon it celebrates the achievements of Mesha, king of Moab, who had been a tributary of Ahab, king of Israel, and rebelled after his death (1 Kings iii. 4, 5). Though the chronology of the period is somewhat uncertain, the date must be in the first half of the 9th century B.C. It is to be remembered, however, that important as this monument is for the development of the alphabet, and because it can be dated with tolerable accuracy, the dialect and alphabet of Moab are not in themselves proof for the Phoenician forms which influenced the peoples of the Aegean, and through them Western Europe. The fragment of a bronze bowl discovered in Cyprus in 1876, which bears round its edge an inscription dedicating it to Baal-Lebanon as a gift from a servant of Hiram, king of the Sidonians, is probably the oldest Phoenician document which we possess. This bowl, though perhaps a little earlier than the Moabite stone, in all probability is not more than a century older, while some authorities think it is even later. The earliest alphabet consisted of twenty-two letters, and bears a very close resemblance to the earliest Green alphabet from A to T. The symbols in the Greek alphabet from Y to O, or in the numerical alphabet to @, are not found in the Phoenician alphabet.

As already mentioned, the twenty-two symbols of the Phoenician alphabet indicate consonantal sounds only. Greek did not possess so many consonants. The Phoenician alphabet possessed many more aspirates than were required in Greek, which tended more and more to drop all its aspirates. Before history begins it had also lost, except sporadically in out-of-the-way dialects, the semi-vowel i (approximately English y.) It therefore made the aspirates A, E, O and the semi-vowel into vowels, and apparently converted the semi-vowel Y = w into the vowel Y = u, which it placed at the end of the alphabet and substituted for it as the sixth symbol of the alphabet the letter F with the old value of w. The superfluous sibilants were also adapted in various ways (see below).

Relationship of Greek to Phoenician

The discovery of a large number of very archaic inscriptions in the island of Thera, which was made by Freiherr Hiller von Gartringen in 1896, has shown that the earliest Greek alphabet was even more like the Phoenician than had been heretofore believed. The symbol for b in Thera (@) is nearer than any previously known to the Semitic letter (@) though, as not infrequently happens in the transference of a symbol from one people to another, its position is inverted—a fate which in this alphabet has befallen also l (Semitic @, Thera @), and possibly s (Semitic @, Thera @). The era of excavation initiated by Dr Schliemann on the grand scale has increased our knowledge of Greek inscriptions beyond anything that was earlier dreamt of. Besides the excavations of Athens, Delos, Epidaurus and Delphi, the results of which are most important for the 5th century B.C. and later. the exploration of the sites of Olympia, of the Heraeum near Argos, of Naucratis in Egypt, and of various Cretan towns (above all the ancient Gortyn), has revolutionized our knowledge of the archaic alphabets of Greece. We can now see how long and laborious was the process by which the Greeks attained to uniformity in writing and in numeration. In no field, perhaps, was the centrifugal tendency of the Greeks more persistent than in such matters. In numeration, indeed, uniformity was not attained till at least the 2nd century of the Christian era. The differentiation of the local alphabets is found from the very beginning of our records: Unfortunately, as yet no record is preserved which can with any probabilily be dated earlier than the 7th century B.C., and the Phoenician influence had by then nearly ceased. How long this influence lasted we cannot tell. If in Crete a system of writing of an entirely different nature had been developed seven or eight centuries before, there must have been some very important reason for the entire abandonment of the old method and the adoption of a new. In Crete, at least, the excavations show that the old civilization must have ended in a social and political cataclysm. The magnificent palace of Minos—there seems no reason to withhold from it the name of the great prince whom Thucydides recognized as the first to hold the empire of the sea—perished by the flames, and it evidently had been plundered beforehand of everything that a conqueror would regard as valuable. The only force in Greek history which we know that could have produced this change was that of the Dorian conquest. As everywhere in the Peloponnese, except at Argos, there seems to have been a sudden break with the earlier civilization, which can have been occasioned only by the semi-barbarous Dorian tribes, so the same result seems to have followed from the same cause in Thera. The Dorians apparently were without an alphabet, and consequently when Phoenician traders and pirates occupied the place left vacant by the downfall of Minos's empire, the people of the island, and of the sea coasts generally, adopted from them the Phoenician alphabet.8 The Greeks who migrated to Cyprus, possibly as the result of the Dorian invasion, adopted a syllabary, not an alphabet (see Plate; also WRITING.) That the alphabet was borrowed and adapted independently by different places not widely separated, and that the earliest Greek alphabets did not spread from one or a few centres in Greek lands, seem clear (a) from the different Greek sounds for which the Phoenician symbols were utilized; (b) from the different symbols which were employed to represent sounds which the Phoenicians did not possess, and for which, therefore, they had no symbols. The Phoenician alphabet was an alphabet of consonants only, but all Greek alphabets as yet known agree in employing A, E, I, O, Y as vowels. On the other band, a table of Greek alphabets9 will show how widely divergent the symbols for the same sound were. Except for a single Attic inscription (see Plate), the alphabets of Thera and of Corinth are the oldest Greek alphabets which we possess. Yet at Corinth alongside @), which is found for the so-called spurious diphthong ei (i.e. the Attic ei, which does not represent an Indo-European ei, but arises by contraction, as in fileite, or through the lengthening of the vowel sound as the result of the loss of a consonant, as in eiremenos for fefremenos) the short e sound is represented by B; i is found at Corinth in its oldest form @, and also as S, while in Thera it is @. In Thera the w sound of digamma (f) was entirely lost, and therefore is not represented. Both Thera and Corinth employ in the earliest inscriptions @ for z, not x, though in both alphabets the ordinary use as x is adopted, no doubt through the influence of trade with other states. On the other hand. at Cleonae. which is distant not more than 8 or 9 m. from Corinth, an ancient inscription written boustrofedon has recently been discovered, which shows that. though Cleonae for B wrote @, like the Corinthian @, and, as at Corinth, wrote @ for a vowel sound, the vowel thus represented was not short and long e (e and e) as at Corinth, but e only, as in @ (chrema me.) Here @ represents e, and the spurious diphthong is represented by ei, as in @ (eimen, Doric infinitive = einai), a form which shows that i has at Cleonae the more modern form as distinguished from the Corinthian

Regarding three other questions controversy still rages. These are: (a) how Greek utilized the four sibilants (Shin, Samech, Zain and Zade), which it rook over from the Phoenician; (b) what was the history of development in the symbols for f, ch, ps, o (the history of x belongs to both heads); (c) the history of the symbol for the digamma f.

Greek use of Phoenician sibilants.

In the Phoenician alphabet Zain was the seventh letter, occupying the same position and having the same form approximately (@) as the early Greek Z, while in pronunciation it was a, voiced s-sound; Samech (@) followed the symbol for n and was the ordinary s-sound, though, as we have seen, it is in different Greek slates at the earliest period z as well as x; afier the symbol for p came Zade (@), which was a strong palatal s, though in name it corresponds to the Greek zera: while lastly Shin (@ follows rhe symbol for r, and was an sh-sound. The Greek name for the sibilant (sigma) may simply mean the hissing letter and be a derivative from sizo; many authorities, however, hold that it is a corruption of the Phoenician Samech. Unfortunately, it is not clear how many sibilants ere distinguished in Greek pronunciation, nor over what areas a particular pronunciation extended. There is, however, considerable evidence of the view that Greek ss representing the sound arising from ky, ch y, ty, thy was pronounced as sh (s), while z representing gy, dy was pronounced in some districts zh ( ***Possible erro On an inscriotion of Halicarnassus, a town which stood in ancient Carian territory, the sound of ss in 'Alikarnasseon is represented by @, as it is also in the Carian name Panyassis (Panna Tios, genitive), though the ordinary @@ is also found in the same inscription. The same variation occurs at the neighbouring Teos and at Ephesus, while the coins of Mesembria in Thrace show regularly @ and @, where @ represents the sound which resulted from the fusion of thy, and which appears in Homer as ss in messos, while in later Green it becomes mesos.12. This symbol @ is in all probability the early form of the letter which was known to the Greeks as San (san) and in modern times as Sampi, and which is utilized as the numeral for 900 in the shape @ According to Herodotus (i. 139), San was only the Dorian name for the letter which the Ionians called Sigma. This would bring it into connexion with the Phoenician @ (Shin), which, turned through a right angle, is possibly the Greek S, though some forms of Zade on old Hebrew coins and gems (@) equally resemble the Greek letter. From other forms of Sade, however, the other early form of s, viz. @, is probably derived. The confusion is thus extreme: the name Zade assimilated in Greek to the names eta and qhra becomes zeta, though the form is that of Zain; the name of Samech is possibly the origin of Sigma, while the form of Samech is that of X which has not taken over a Phoenician name. lt is probable that the form @ is an abbreviation in writing from right to left of the earlier @, and @ of the four stroke @. That the confusion of the sibilants was not coufined to the Greeks only, but that pronunciation varied within a small area even among the Semitic stock, is shown by the difficulty which the Ephraimites found in pronouncing "shibboleth'' (Judges xii. 6).

History of the digamma.

For the history of the additional symbols which are not Phoenician, we must begin with @ There is no Greek alphabet in which the symbol is not represented. But the Phoenician form corresponding to it is the consonant w, and occupies the position of the Greek digamma as sixth in the series. Whence did the Greeks obtain the digamma? The point is not clear, but probably the Greeks acted here as they did in the case of the vowel i and the consonant y, adopting the consonant symbol for the vowel sound. As, however, except in Cyprus, Pamphylia and Argos, the only y sound which survived in Greek— the glide between i and another vowel as in diia=diya—is never represented, there was no occasion to use the Phoenician Jod in a double function. With Vau it was different; the u-sound existed in some form in all dialects, the w-souud survived in many far into historical times. The Phoenician symbol having been adopted for the vowel sound, whence came the new symbol @ or @ for the digamma? Hitherto there have been two views. Most authorities have held that the new form was derived from E by dropping the lowermost crossbar; some have held that it developed out of the old Vau, a view which is not impossible in itself and has the similar development in Aramaic (Tema) in its favour. But as Dr Evans has found a form like the digamma among his most recent types of symbols, and as we have no intermediate forms which will prove the development of @ from @ , though the form found at Oaxos in Crete, viz. @ shows a form sufficiently unlike @, it is necessary to suspend judgment.

Greek aspirates, &c.

The Greek aspirates were not the sounds which we represent by ph, th, ch (Scotch), but corresponded rather to the sound of the final consonants in such words as lip, bit, lich, the breath being audible after the formation of the consonant. It is not clear that Greek took over @ with this value, for in one Theran inscription @ are found combined as equivalent to T—H, while the regular representation of f and ch is @ and K @, or @ (koppa) @ respectively. In the great Gortyn inscription from Crete and occasionally in Thera, @ (in Crete in the form C) and K are used alone for f and ch, just as conversely even in the 5th century the name of Themistocles has been found upon an ostrakon spelt Themisthokles. Such confusions show that even to Greek ears the distinction between the sounds was very small. To have recorded it in writing at all shows considerable progress in the observation of sounds. Such progress is more easily indicated by changes in the symbols among a people whose acquaintance with the art is not of long standing nor vcry familiar. English, though possessing sounds comparable to the Greek th, f, ch, has never made any attempt to represent them in writing. On the other hand, no doubt Athens in 403 B.C. officially adopted the Ionic alphabet and gave up the old Attic alphabet. The political situation in Athens, however, at this time was as exceptional as the French Revolurion, and offered an opportunity not likely to recur for the adoption of a system in widely extended use which private individuals had been employing for a long time.

The history of rhe symbols f and ch is altogether unknown. The very numerous theories on the subject have generally been founded on a principle which itself is in need of proof, viz. that these symbols must have arisen by differentiation from others already existing in the alphabet. The explanation is possible, but it is not easy to see why, for example, the symbol @ or @ = Koppa, the Latin Q, should have been utilized for a sound so different as p-h; nor, again, why the symbol for th (@) by losing its cross stroke should become f, seeing that the sounds of th and f outside Aeolic (a dialect which is not here in question) are never confused. On the other hand, if we remember the large number of symbols belonging to the prehistoric script, it will seem at least as easy to believe that the persons who, by adding new letters to the Phoenician alphabet, attempted to bring the symbols more into accordance with the sounds of the Greek language, may have borrowed from this older script. It is now generally admitted that the improvements of the alphabet were made by traders in the interests of commerce, and that these improvements began from the great Greek emporia of Asia Minor, above all from Miletus. Symbols exactly like f, ch, and ps (@, @, @) are found in the Carian alphabet, and transliterated by Professor Sayce 13 as v (and u), h and kh respectively. If the Carian alphabet goes back to the prehistoric script, why should not Miletus have borrowed them from it? We have already seen that, in the earliest alphabets of Thera and Corinth, the ordinary symbol for x in the Ionic alphabet was used for z. This usage brought in its train another—the use of @, not for ps as in Ionic, but for x in the name @ = 'Alexagooa, and similarly in Melos, @ = Praxikudeos.14 This experiment, for it was no more, bclongs apparently to the latter part of the 6th century, and was soon given up. As the Ionians kept the form @, which the people of Thera used for z, in the same position in their alphabet as Samech occupied in the Phoenician alphabet, there can be no doubt as to its origin. The symbol @ which the Chalcidian Greeks used in the 6th century B.C. for x may be derived, according to the most widely accepted theory, from a primitive form of Samech @, which is recorded only in the abecedaria of the Chalcidian colonies in Italy. In this case the borrowing of the Greek alphabet must long precede any Phoenician record we possess. But it is not probable that the Ionic and Phoenician @ developed independently from the closed form. Kretschmer, however, in several publications15 takes a different view. He thinks that the guttural element in x was a spirant, and therefore different from ch, which is an aspirate. He points out that in Naxos, in a 6th-century inscription,16 x in Naxiou, exochos and Fraxou is represented by @, the first element in which he regards as a form of @ = h. As ch is found in the same inscription (in the form X), the guttural element must have been different, else x would have been spelt @. Attica and most of the Cyclades kept X for the guttural element in x (written @ or @) and for ch as well. On the west of the Aegean a new symbol @ was invented for the aspirate value, and this spread over the mainland and was carried by emigrants to Rhodes, Sicily and Italy. The sign ch was kept in the western group for the guttural spirant in x, which was written @; but, as this spirant occurred nowhere else, the combination was often abbreviated, and X was used for @ precisely as in the Italic alphabets we shall flnd that F = f develops out of a combination FH.

The development of symbols for the long vowels e and o was also the work of the Ionians. The h-sound ceased at a very early period to exist in Ionic, and by 800 B.C. was ignored in writing. The symbol @ or H was then employed for the long open e-sound, a use suggested by the name of the letter, which, by the loss of the aspirate, had passed from Heta to Eta. About the same period, and probably as a sequel to this change, the Greeks of Miletus developed @ for the long open o-sound, a form which in all probability is differentiated out of O. Centuries passed, however, before this symbol was generally adopted, Athens using only O for o, o and ou, the spurious diphthong, until the adoption of the whole ionic alphabet in 403 B.C.17

Latin alphabet.

The discoveries of the last quarter of the 19th century carried back our knowledge of the Latin alphabet by at least two centuries, although the monuments of an early age which have been discovered are only three.

The Dvenos inscription.

(a) In 1880 was discovered between the Quirinal and Viminal hills a little earthenware pot of a curious shape, being as it were, three vessels radiating from a centre, each with a separate mouth at the top.18 Round the sides of the triangle formed by the three vessels and under the mouths runs an inscription of considerable length. The use for which the pot was intended and the purport of the inscription have been much disputed, there being at least as many interpretations as there are words in the inscription. The date is probably the early part of the 4th century B.C. Though found in Rome, the vessel is small enough to be easily portable, and might therefore have been brought from elsewhere in Italy. It is equally possible that the potter who inscribed the words upon it was not a native of Rome. One or two points in theinscription make it doubtful whether the Latin upon it is really the Latin of Rome. It is generally known as the Dvenos inscription, from the name of the maker who wrote on the vessel from right to left the inscription, part of which is DVENOS MED FECED ( = fecit).

The Praeneste fibula.

(b) The second of these early records is the inscription on a gold fibula found at Praeneste and published in 1887. The inscription runs from right to left, and is in letters which show more clearly than ever that the Roman alphabet is borrowed from the alphabets of the Chalcidian Greek colonies in Italy. Its date cannot be later than the 5th and is possibly as early as the 6th century B.C. The words are MANIOS MED FHEFHAKED NVMASIOI, "Manius made me for Numasius.'' The symbol for M has still five strokes, s has the angular form @, @. The inscription is earlier than the Latin change of s between vowels into r, for Numasioi is the dative of the older form which corresponds to the later Numerius. The verb form is remarkable. In the Dvenos inscription the perfect of facio is feced; here it is a reduplicated form with the same vowel as the present. The spelling also is interesting. The symbol K is still in ordinary use, and not merely used for abbreviations as in the classical age. But most remarkable is the representation of Latin F by FH. The reason for this is clear. The value of F in the Greek alphabet is w and not f as in Latin. Greek had no sound corresponding to Latin F, consequently an attempt is made by combining F and H to indicate the difference of sound. Etruscan uses FH in in the same way. As Latin, however, made the symbol V indicate not only the vowel sound u, but also the consonant sound v (i.e. English w), the sign for the digamma F was left unemployed, and as FH was a cumbrous method of representing a sound which did not exist in Greek, the second element came to be left out in writing. Thus F came to be the representative of the unvoiced labiodental spirant instead of that for the bilabial voiced spirant. Whether the form fefaked was ever good Latin in Rome may be doubted, for the Romans, in spite of the few miles that separate Praeneste from Rome, were inclined to sneer at the pronunciation and idiom of the praenestines (cf. Plautus, Trin. 609, Truc. 691; Quintilian i. 5, 56)

Forum inscriptions.

(c) The last, and in some respects the most important, of these records was found in 1899 under an ancient pavement in the Comitium at the north-west corner of the Roman Forum. It is engraved upon the four sides and one bevelled edge of a pillar, the top of which has been broken off. As the writing is boustrofedon, beginning at the bottom of the pillar and running upwards and down again, no single line of the inscription is complete. Probably more than half the pillar is lost, so that it is not possible to make out the sense with certainty. The inscription is probably not older than that on the fibula from Praeneste, but has the additional interest of being undoubtedly couched in the Latin of Rome. The surviving portion of the inscription contains examples of all the letters of the early alphabet, though the forms of F and B are fragmentary and doubtful. As in the Praenestine inscription, the alphabet is still the western (Chalcidian) alphabet. K is still in use as an ordinary consonant, and not limited to a symbol for abbreviations as in the classical period. The rounded form of g is found with the value of G in RECEI, which is probably the dative of rex. H has still the closed form @, M has the five-stroke form, S is the three-stroke @, tending to become rounded. R appears in the Greek form without a tail,and V and Y are both found for the same sound. The manner of writing up and down instead of backwards and forwards across the stone is obviously appropriate to a surface which is of considerable length, but comparatively narrow, a connected sense being thus much easier to observe than in writing across a narrow surface where, as in the gravestones of Melos, three lines are required for a single word. The form of the monument corresponds to that which we are told was given to the revolving wooden pillars on which the laws of Solon were painted. That the writing of Solon's laws, which was boustrofedon, was also vertical is rendered probable by the phrase o katothen nomos in Demosthenes' speech Against Aristocrates, sec. 28, for which Harpocration is unable to supply a satisfactory explanation.

Differentiation of Roman from Greek alphabet.

The differentiation of the Roman alphabet from the Greek is brought about (a) by utilizing the digamma for the unvoiced labiodental spirant F; (b) by dropping out the aspirates th, f, ch (@ in the Chalcidian alrhabet, whence the Roman is derived) from the alphabet proper and employing them only as numerals, th (@) being gradually modified till it was identified with C as though the initial of centum, 100. Similarly @ became in time identified with M as though the initial of mille, 1000, aud the side strokes of ch in the above form were flattened out till it became @, and ultimately L, 50. (c) After 350 B.C., at latest, there was in Latin no sound corresponding to Z, which was therefore dropped. In the Chalcidian alphabet the symbol for x was placed after the symbols common to all Greek alphabets, a position which X retains in the Latin (and also in the Faliscan) alphabet. K in time passed out of use except as an abbreviation, its place being taken by C, which, as we have seen, is in the earliest inscrio1ion still g. Three points here require explanation: (1) Why K fell into disuse: (2) Why C took the place of K; (3) why the new symbol G was put in the place of the lost Z. It is clear that C must have become an equivalent of K before the latter fell out of use. There is some evidence which seems to point to a prouunciation of the voiced mutes which, like the South German pronunciation of g, d, b, but slightly differentiated them from the unvoiced mutes, so that confusion migh easily arise. The Etruscans, who were separated from the Romans only by the Tiber, gradually lost the voiced mutes. But another cause was perhaps more potent. C and IC, as k was frequently written, would easily be confused in writing, and Professor Hempl (Transactions of the Chalcidian Philological Association for 1899, pp. 24 ff.) shows that the Chalcidian form of z— I developed into shapes which might have partaken of the confusion. Owing to this confusion, the new symbol G, differentiated from C, took the place of the useless I. In abbreviations, however, C remained as before in the value of G, as in the names Gaius and Gnaeus. Y and Z were added in the last century of the republic for use in transliterating Greek words containing u and z.19

The dialect which was mosr closely akin to Latin was Faliscan. The men of Falerii, however, regularly took the side of the Etruscans in wars with Rome, and it is clear that the civilization of the old Falerii, destroyed for its rebellion in 241 B.C., was Etruscan and not Roman in character. Peculiar to this alphabet is the form for f—@. Much more important than the scanty remains of Faliscan is the Oscan alphabet. The history of this alphabet is different from that of Rome. It is certain from the symbols which they develop or drop that the people of Campania and Samnium borrowed their alphabet from the Etruscans, who held dominion in Campania from the 8th to the 5th century B.C. Previous to the Punic wars Campania had reached a higher stage of civilization than Rome. Unfortunately, the remains of that civilization are very scanty, and our knowledge of the official alphabet outside Capua, and at a later period Pompeii, is practically confined to two important inscriptions, the tabula Agnonensis, now in the British Museum, and the Cippus Abellanus, which is now kept in the Episcopal Seminary at Nola. Of Etruscan origin also is the Umbrian alphabet, represented first and foremost in the bronze tablets from Gubbio (the ancient Iguvium). The Etruscan alphabet, like the Latin, was of Chalcidian origin. That it was borrowed at an early date is shown by the fact that most of its numerous inscriptions run from right to left, though some are written boustrofedon. That it took over the whole Chalcidian alphabet is rendered probable by the survival in Umbrian and Oscan, its daughter alphabets, of forms which are not found in Etruscan itself. This mysterious language, despite the existence of more than 6000 inscriptions, and the publication in 1892 of a book written in the language and handed down to us by the accident of its use to pack an Egyptian mummy, remains as obscure as ever, but apparently it underwent very great phonetic changes at an early period, so that the voiced mutes B, D, G disappeared. Of the existence of the vowel O there is no evidence. If it ever existed in Etruscan, it had been lost before the Oscans and Umbrians borrowed their alphabets. On the other hand, both of their alphabets preserve B and Umbrian G in the form @. Etruscan also retained this symbol in the form @, and utilized it exactly as Latin did to replace @. Oscan, in order to represent D, introduced later a form @, thus creating confusion between the symbols for d and for r. This form was adopted for d because @ had already been borrowed from Etruscan as the symbol for r, although @ is also found on Etruscan inscriptions. For the Greek digamma Etruscan used both @ and @, but the former only was borrowed by the other languages. Etruscan, like Latin, used @(from right to left) to represent the sound of Latin F, but, unlike Latin, adopted @ not @ as the single symbol. This form it then wrote as two lozenges @, whence developed a later sign, @, which is used also in Umbrian and Oscan. As the old digamma was kept, this new sign was placed after those borrowed from the Chalcidian alphabet. Similarly it used @ and I for the Chalcidian z; Umbrian borrowed the first, Oscan the second form. The form for h was still closed @, which Etruscan passed on to Oscan, while Umbrian modified it to @. The form for m has five strokes; from a later form @ the Oscan form was borrowed. Of the two sibilants, M and @ or S, Oscan adopted only @, Umbrian both M and the rounded form S. @ is found on Etruscan inscriptions, but not in the alphabet series preserved; neirher Umbrian nor Oscan has this form. T appears in Etruscan as @, and X; of these Umbrian borrows the first two, while Oscan has a form T like Latin. Etruscan took over the three Greek aspirates, th, f, ch, in their Chalcidian forms; th survives in Umbrian as @ , the others naturally disappear. Both Umbrian and Oscan devised two new symbols. Umbrian took over from Etruscan perhaps the sign @, but gave it the new value of a spirant whirh developed out of an earlier d-sound, but which is written in the Latin alphabet with rs. The second Umbrian symbol was @, which was the representative of an s-sound developed by palatalizing an earlier k. In Oscan, which had an o-sound, but no symbol for it, a new sign was invented by placing a dot between the legs of the symbol for u-@. This, however, is found only in the best-written documents, and on some materials the dot cannot be distinguished. The symbol @ was invented for the open i-sound and close e'm-sound.20 At a much later epoch it was introduced into the Latin alphabet by the emperor Claudius to represent y, and the sound which was wrirten as i or u in maximus, maxumus, &c.

Besides the Italic alphabets already mentioned, which are all derived from the alphabet of the Chalcidian Greek colonists in Italy, there were at least four other alphabets in use in different parts of Italy: (1) the Messapian of the south-east part of the peninsula, in which the inscriptions of the Illyrian dialect in use there were written, an alphabet which, according to Pauli (Alt-italische Forschungen, iii. chap. ii.) was borrowed from the Locrian alphabet; (2) the Sabellic alphabet, derived from that of Corinth and Corcyra, and found in a few inscriptions of eastern-central Italy; (3) the alphabet of the Veneti of north-east Italy derived from the Elean: (4) the alphabet of Sondrio (between Lakes Como and Garda), which Pauli, on the insufficient ground that it possesses no symbols corresponding to f and ch, derives from a source at the same stage of development as the oldest alphabets of Thera, Melos and Crete.

From the fact that upon the Galassi vase (unearthed at Cervetri, but probably a product of Caere), which is now in the Gregorian Museum of the Vatican, a syllabary is found along with one of the most archaic Greek alphabets, and that a similar combination was found upon the wall of a tomb at Colle, near Siena, it has been argued that syllabic preceded alphabetic writing in Italy. But a syllabary where each syllable is made by the combinations of a symbol for a consonant with that for a vowel can furnish no proof of the existence of a syllabary in the strict sense, where each symbol represents a syllable; it is rather evidence against the existence of such writing. The syllabary upon the Galassi vase indicates in all probability that the vase, which resembles an ink-bottle, belonged to a child, for whose edification the syllables pa, pi, pe, pu and the rest were intended. The evidence adduced from the Latin grammarians, and from abbreviations on Latin inscriptions like lubs for lubens, is not sufficient to establish the theory.

Teutonic runes.

It has been argued that the runes of the Teutonic peoples have been derived from a form of the Etruscan alphabet, inscriptions in which are spread over a great part of northern Italy, but of which the most characteristic are found in the neighbourhood of Lugano, and in Tirol near Innsbruch, Botzen and Trent. The Danish scholar L. F. A. Wimmer, in his great work Die Runenschrift (Berlin, 1887), contends that the resemblance, though striking, is superficial. Wimmer's own view is that the runes were developed from the Latin alphabet in use at the end of the 2nd century A.D. Wimmer supports his thesis with great learning and ingenuity, and when allowance is made for the fact that a script to be written upon wood, as the runes were, of necessity avoids horizontal lines which run along the fibres of the wood, and would therefore be indistinct, most of the runic signs thus receive a plausible explanation. The strongest argument for the derivation from the Latin alphabet is undoubtedly the value of attaching to @; for, as we have seen, the Greek value of this symbol is w, and its value as f arises only by abbreviation from FH. On the other hand, several of Wimmer's equations are undoubtedly forced. Even if we grant that the Latin symbols were inverted or set at an angle (a proceeding which is paralleled by the treatment of the Phoenician signs in Greek hands), so that @ represents Latin V, M, Latin E, @ and @ Latin D; while the symbol for the voiced spirant th is @ doubled, @, @, it is difficult to believe that the symbol for the spirant g, viz. @, represents a Latin K (which was of rare occurrence), or again @, @ a Latin N, or that the symbol for ng, do, represents @ = c doubled. Moreover, the date of the borrowing seems too late. The runes are found in all Teutonic countries,and the Romans were in close contact with the Germans on the Rhine before the beginning of the Christian era. We hear of correspondence between the Romans and German chieftains in the early day's of the empire. It is strange, therefore, if the Roman alphabet, which formed the model for the runes, was that of two whole centuries later, and even then the formal alphabet of inscriptions. By that time the Teutons were likely to have more convenient materials than wood whereon to write, so that the adaptation of the forms would not have been necessary. That the Germans were familiar with some sort of marks on wood at a much earlier period is shown by Tacitus's Germania, chap. x. There we are told that for purposes of divination certain signs were scratched on slips of wood from a fruit-bearing tree (including, no doubt, tile beech; cp. book, German Buch, and Buchstabe, a letter of the alphabet); the slips were thrown down promiscuously on a white cloth. whence the expert picked them up at random and by them interpreted fate. In these slips we have the origin of the Norse kefli, the Scots kaivel, which were and are still used as lots. The fishermen of north-east Scotland, when they return after a successful haul, divide the spoil into as many shares as there are men in the boat, with one share more for the boat. Each man then procures a piece of wood or stone, on which he puts a private mark. These lots are put in a heap, and an outsider is called in who throws one lot or kaivel upon each heap of fish. Each fisherman then finds his kaivel, and the heap on which it lies is his. This system of "casting kaivels,'' as it is called, is certainly of great antiquity. But its existence will not help to prove an early knowledge of reading or writing, for in order that everything may be fair, it is clear that the umpire should not be able to identify the lot as belonging to a particular individual. It has, however, been contended that a system of primitive runes existed whence some at least of the later runes were borrowed, and the ownership marks of the Lapps, who have no knowledge of reading and writing, have been regarded as borrowed from these early Teutonic runes.21 Be this as it may, the resemblances between the runic and the Mediterranean alphabets are too great to admit of denial that it is from a Greek alphabet, whether directly or indirectly, that the runes are derived. That Wimmer postdates the introduction of the runic alphabet seems clear from the archaic forms and method of writing. It is very unlikely that a people borrowing an alphabet which was uniformly written from left to right should have used it in order to write from right to left, or boustrofedon. Hence Hempl contends22 that Wimmer's view must be discarded, and that the runes were derived about 600 B.C. from a western Greek alphabet which closely resembled the Formello alphabet (one of the ancient Chalcidian abecedaria) and the Sabellic and North Etruscan alphabets. He thus fixes the date at the same period as Isaac Taylor had done in his Greeks and Goths and The Alphabet. Taylor, however, derived the runes from the alphabet of a Greek colony on the Black Sea. Hempl's initiative was followed by Professor Gundermann of Giessen, who announced in November 180723 that he had discovered the source of the runic alphabet, the introduction of which he declares preceded the first of the phonetic changes known as the "Teutonic sound-shifting,'' since @ = g is used for k, X = ch for g, a Theta-like symbol for d, while zd is used for st. If this view (which is identical with Taylor's) be true, we have a parallel in the Armenian alphabet, which is similarly used for a new value of the sounds. Hempl, on the other hand, contends that the sound-shifting had already taken place, and, arguing that several of the symbols have changed places (e.g. @ f and @ a, @ u and @ b, because at this time b was a bilabial spirant and not a stop), ultimately obtains an order— a b d e f z kgw h i j @@ p r s t u l m n th o. As neither Gundermann nor Hempl has published the full evidence for his view, no definite conclusion at the moment is possible.

Ogam writing.

In one of the earliest runic records which we possess, the pendant found at Vadstena in Sweden in 1774, and dating from about A.D. 600 (see Plate) the signs are divided up into three series of eight (the twenty fourth, @, being omitted for want of room). Upon the basis of this division a system of cryptography (in the sense that the symbols are unintelligible without knowledge of the runic alphabet) was developed, wherein the series and the position within the series of the letter indicated, were each represented by straight strokes, the strokes for the series being shorter than those for the runes or the series being represented by strokes to the left the runes by strokes to the right of a medial line.24 From this system probably developed the ogam writing employed among the Celtic peoples of Britain and Ireland. The ogam inscriptions in Wales are frequently accompanied by Latin legend, and they date probably as far back as the 5th and 6th centuries A D. Hence the connexion between Celt and Teuton as regards writing must go back to a period preceding the Viking inroads of the 8th century. Taylor, however, conjectures (The Alphabet ii. p 227) that the ogams originated in Pembroke, "where there was a very ancieni Teutonic settlement, possibly of Jutes, who as is indicated by the evidence of runic inscriptions fonnd in Kent, seem to have been the only Teutonic people of southern Britain who were acquainted with the Gothic Futhoro.'' However this may be, the ogam alphabet shows some knowledge of phonetics and some attempt to classifv the sounds accordingly. The symbols are as follows25:—

The form of the ogam alphabet made it easy to carve hastily; hence in the old sagas, when a hero is killed we had the common formula. "His grave was dug and his stone was raised, and his name was written in ogam.'' mccording to Sophus Muller (Nordische Altertumskunde, ii. p. 264), it was from Britain that the use of runes upon gravestones was derived a use which, to judge from the number of bilingual inscriptions in Britain, the Celts derived from the Romans.

The special forms of the alphabet—the Cyrillic and the Glagolitic —which have been adopted by certain of the Slavonic peoples are both sprung directly from the Greek alphabet of the ninth century A.D , with the considerable additions rendered necessary by the greater variety of sounds in Slavonic as compared with Greek. Apart from other evidence, the use of B with the value of v, of H as well as I with the value of i, of F with the value of f and X wiih that of the Scotch ch, would be proof that the alphabet was not borrowed till long after the Greek classical period, for not till later did b, f, ch become spirants and e become identified with i. The confusion of b wirh v necessitated the invention of a new symbol b in the Cyrillic, @ in the Glagolithic for b, while new symbols were also required for the sounds or combinations of sounds z (zh), dz, st (sht), c (ts), c (ch in church), s (sh), u, i, y (u without protrusion of the lips), e (a close long e sound), for the combination of o, a and e with consonantal I (English y) and for the nasalized vowels e, a (nasalized o in pronunciation) and the combinations je and ja (English je and ja) In all these matters Glagolitic differs very little from Cyrillic; it has only one symbol for ja (ya) and e because both in this dialect were pronounced the same. It has also only one symbol for e and je (ye) for the phonetic reason that je always appears in the old ecclesiastical Slavonic, for which the alphabets were fashioned, at the beginning of words and after vowels: cp. the English use of the symbol u in unspoken and uniform. Glagolitic has a symbol for the palatalized g (@), but it is used only in the transcription of Greek words, g having become y early between vowels in the popular dialects.

Such an elaborate alphabet could hardly have been invented except by a scholar, and tradition, probably rightly, has attached the credit for its invention to Cyril (originally Constantine), who along wi1h his brother Methodius proceeded in A.D. 863 to Moravia from Constantinople, for the purpose of converting the Slavonic inhabitants to Christianity. The only question which concerns us here is which of the two alphabets was the earlier in use, and after much discussion authorities on Slavonic seem generally agreed that it was the Glagolitic (the name is derived from the Old Bulgarian, i.e old ecclesiastical Slavonic glagolu, "word''). According to Professor Leskien (Grammatlk der altbulgariechen (altkirchenslavischen) Sprache, Heidelberg, 1909, p. xxi.), Cyril had probably made a prolonged and careful study of Slavonic before proceeding on his missionary journey, and probably in the first instance with a view to preaching the Gospel to the Slavs of Macedonia and Bulgaria, who were much nearer his own home, Thessalonica, than were those of Moravia. The Glagolitic was founded upon the ordinary Greek minuscule writing of the period, as was shown by Dr Isaac Taylor,26 though the writing of the letters separately without abbreviations and an obvious attempt at artistic effect has gradually differentiated it from Greek writing. This alphabet, which is much more difficult to read than the bolder Cyrillic founded on the Greek uncial, survived for ordinary purposes in Croatia and in the islands of the Quarnero till the 17th century. The Servians and Russians apparently always used the Cyrillic, and its advantages gradually ousted the Glagolitic elsewhere, though the service book in the old ecclesiastical language which is used by the Roman Catholic Croats is in Glagolitic.27

Phrygian.

While the Carian and Lycian were probabIy independent of the Greek in origin, so, too, at the opposite end of the Mediterranean was the Iberian. On the other hand, the Phrygian was very closely akin to the Greek in alphabet as well as in linguistic character. The Greek alphabet, with which it was most closely connected, was the Western, for 1he evidence is strongly in favour of the form @ having the value of ch, not ps, in Phrygian, as it certainly has in the Etruscan inscription found on Lemnos in 1886, which is in an alphabet practically identical.

Armenian.

To a much later era belongs the Armenian alphabet, which, according to tradition, was revealed to Bishop Mesrob in a dream. The land might have been Grecized had it not, about A.D. 387, been divided between Persia and Byzantium, the greater part falling to the former, who discouraged Greek and favoured Syriac, which the Christian Armenians did not understand. As those within Persian terrirory were forbidden to learn Greek, an Armenian Christian liierature became a necessity. Taylor contends that the alphabet is Iranian in origin, but the circumstances justify Gardthausen and Hubschmann in claiming it for Greek. That some symbols are like Persian only shows that Mesrob was not able to rid himself of the influences under which he lived.

Of the later development of Phoenician amongst Phoenician people little need be said here. It can be traced in the graffiti of the mercenaries of Psammetichus at Abu Simbel in Upper Egyrt, where Greeks, Carians and Phoenicians all cut their names upon the legs of the colossal statues. Still later it is found on the stele of Byblos, and on the sarcophagus of Eshmunazar (about 300 B.C.). The most numerous inscriptions come from the excavations in Carthage, the ancient colony of Sidon. One general feature characterizes them all, though they differ somewhat in detail. The symbols become longer and thinner; in fact, cease to be the script of monuments and become the script of a busy trading people. While the Phoenician alphabet was thus fertile in developing daughter alphabets in the West, the progress of writing was no less great in the East, first among the Semitic peoples, and through them among other peoples still more remote. The carrying of the alphabet to the Greeks by the Phoenicians at an early period affords no clue to the period when Semitic ingenuity constructed an alphabet out of a heterogeneous multitude of signs. If it be possible to assign to some of the monuments discovered in Arabia by Glaser a date not later than 1500 B.C., the origin of the alphabet and its dissemination are carried back to a much earlier period than had hitherto been supposed. Next in date amongst Semitic records of the Phoenician type to the bowl of Baal-Lebanon and the Moabite stone comes the Hebrew inscription found in the tunnel at the Pool of Siloam in 1881, which possibly dates back to the reign of Hezekiah (700 B.C.). The only other early records are seals with Hebrew inscriptions and potters' marks upon clay vessels found in Lachish and other towns.28

Like the Phoenician, these Hebrew signs are distinctly cursive in character but, as the legend on the coins of the Maccabees shows, became stereotyped for monumental use, while the Jews after the exile gradually adopted the Aramaic writing, whence the square Hebrew script is descended. The Samaritans alone stuck fast to the old Hebrew as part of their contention that they, and not the Jews, were the true Hebrews.

Aramaic

The oldest records in Aramaic were found at Sindjirli, in the north of Svria, in 1890, and date to about 800 B.C. At this epoch the Aramaic alphabet, or at any rate the alphabet of these records, is but little different from that shown upon the Moabite stone. Either two sounds are confused under one symbol, or these records represent a dialect which, like Hebrew and Assyrian, shows sh, z, and c, where the ordinary Aramaic representation is t, d and t the Arabic th, dh, and th. The Aramaic became in time by far the most important of the northern Semitic alphabets. Even while long and important documents in Assyria were still written on clay tablets, in cuneiform, a docket or precis of the contents was made upon the side in Aramaic, which thus became the alphabet of cursive writing—a fact which explains its later development. Two changes, the inception of which is early, but the completion of which belongs to the Persian period, gave the impulse which Aramaic obeyed in all its later developments. These were (a) the opening of the heads of letters, so that beth @, daleth @, and resh @ become respectively @, @, and @, while O becomes first U and ultimatelv V. In thc later development the heads tend to be reduced in size, and finally to disappear. (b) As was natural in cursive wriiing, angles tend to become rounded, and the tails of the letters, which in, Phoenician are very long are curved round in the middie of words so as to join on to the succeeding letter. These characteristics were naturally emphasized in the Aramaic writing on papyrus which, beginning about 500 B.C., during the Persian sovereignty in Egypt, lasted on there till about 200 B.C. The gradual development of this script into the square Hebrew, and the more ornamental writing of Palmyra, may be traced in the works of Berger and Lidzbarski.30

Arabic.

In the land of the Nabataeans, a people of Arabian origin, the Aramaic alphabet was employed in a form which ultimately developed into the modern Arabic alphabet. Probably the earliest example of the Aramaic script in Atrabia is the stele of Tema, in north-western Arabia, whereon is commemorated the establishment of a worship of an Aramaic diviniry. This monument, now in the Louvre, is not later than the 5th century B.C. In it the writing preserves its ancient form, the heads of the closed letters being only very slightly opened. The Nabataean inscriptions belong to a different epoch and a different style. They were first discovered by Charles Doughty in 1876-1877, who was followed between 1880 and 1884 by Huber and Euting, to whom a complete collection of these records is due. The records are fortunately dated, and belong to the period from 9 B.C. to A.D. 75. A further development can be traced in the graffiti wirh which pilgrims adorned the rocks of Mount Sinai down to the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. By the help of these inscriptions it is possible to trace the development of the modern Arabic where so many of the forms of the letters have become similar that diacritic points are essential to distinguish them, the original causes of confusion being the continuous development of cursive writing and the adoption of ligatures. Arabic writing, as known to us from documents of the early Mahommedan period, exhibits two principal types which are known respectively as the Cufic and the nashki. The former soon fell into disuse for ordinary purposes and was retained only for inscriptions, coins, &c.; the latter, which is more cursive in character, is the parent of the Arabic writing of the present day. Another form of the Aramaic alphabet, namely, the so-called Estrangela writing which was in use amongst the Christians of northern Syria, mas carried by Nestorian missionaries into Central Asia and became the ancestor of a multitude of alphabets spreading through the Turkomans as far east as Manchuria.

South Semitic.

There still remains a branch of the Semitic languages which, except for one or two of the languages belonging to it, was practically unknown till recent years. This is the South Semitic. Till the 19th century the earliest form known of this alphabet was the Ethiopian or Geez, in which Christian documents have been preserved from the early centuries of our era, and which is still used by the Abyssinians for liturgical purposes. The travels of two English naval officers, Wellsted and Cruttenden, through Yemen in southern Arabia in 1835, first called attention to the earlier monuments of Arabia. Fulgence Fresnel first established the importance of the inscriptions discovered by these Englishmen, and in 1843, when French consul at Jeddah, obtained through a French traveller, Francois Arnaud, information about other monuments of the same kind. In 1869 Joseph Halevy brought back nearly seven hundred inscriptions from Yemen, and this number has been increased from other quarters by several thousands, through the energy of several adventurous scholars, but chiefly by Eduard Glaser's repeated journeys. The south Arabian inscrip1ions to which the terms Himyaritic aud Sabaean are applied fall into two groups, the Sabaean proper and the Minaean. These are distinguished by differences in grammar and phraseology rather than in alphabet. The relative age of the Minaean and Sabaean monuments is a matter of dispute amongst Semitic scholars. Inscriptions in a kindred dialect were brought from El-Ola, in the north of the Hedjaz, by Professor Euting. To these D. H. Muller31 gave the title of Lihyanite, from the name of the tribe (Lihjan) to which they belong. Their date is supposed to be earlier than that of the Sabaean and Minaean. Minaean inscriptions were found at the same place, the Minaeans having had a trading station there. In 1893 J. Theodore Bent copied carefully at Yeha in Abyssinia a few inscriptions, some of which had been already copied in 1814 by the English traveller Salt. These inscriptions are of the greatest importance, because they demonstrate, according to D. H. Muller,32 that the Sabaeans had colonized Abyssinia as early as 1000 B.C. Other inscriptions copied by Bent at Aksum belong to the 4th century A.D. and later. Two of the earliest are written in Sabaean characters, but in the language which is known as Geez or Ethiopic. From about A.D 500 Ethiopic was written in an alphabet which according to Muller was no gradual growth but an ingenious device of a Greek scholar of this period at the court of Abyssinia. The Sabaean, like other Semitic, inscriptions are generallv written from right to left, but a few are boustrofedon; the Ethiopic is written from left to right, and makes a marked advance upon the ordinary Semitic manner of writing by indicating the vowels. This is done by varying the form of the consonant according to the vowel which follows it. The Ethiopic system is thus rather a syllabary than an alphabet. It is noticeable that the changes thus established were made upon the basis of the old Sabaean script, which in its oldest form is evidently closely related to the old Phoenician, though it would be premature to say that the Sabaean alphabet is derived from the Phoenician. It is as likely, considering the date of both, that they are equally descendants from an older source. The characteristics of the Sabaean are great squareness aud boldness in outline. It has twenty-nine symbols, whereby it is enabled to differentiate certain sounds which are not distinguished from one another in the writing of the northern Semites. As we have seen, it is a tendency in northern Semitic to open the heads of letters, and therefore it is possible that the Sabaean form for Jod @ may be older32 than the Phoenician @. Similarly if Pe means mouth, Hommel is right in contending that the Sabaean @ is more like the object than the Phoenician @, if we suppose the form, like @ or the Phoenician @ and @ for the Phoenician @ turned through an angle of 90 deg. . So also if Kaf corresponds to the Babylonian Kappu, "hollow-hand,'' the Sabaean form @ which Hommel33 interprets as the outline of the hand with the fingers turned in and the thumb raised is a better pictograoh than the various meaningless forms of k (@, &c.).