history and common life, as well as to those of religion and mythology since this inscription speaks of the three divisions of the pillar, as containing different versions of the same decree, in the sacred and the vulgar character, and in the Greek language, respectively and, that there was no fraud in this description, was at once made evident by the just observation of Akerblad, who pointed out, at the end of the hieroglyphical inscription, the three first numerals, indicated by 1, H, and H!, respectively, where the Greek bas the first and the second the end being broken off. It was also evident, that the hieroglyphical language continued to be understood and employed in the time of Ptolemy Epiphanes but here the matter rested for several years no single representation of an existing object having been so identified, on this or any other monument among the hieroglyphics, as to have its signification dètermined, even by a probable conjecture.
In the mean time, the enterprising and enlightened Baron Alexander Von Humboldt was contributing to illustrate the nature of hieroglyphical languages, by his account of the Mexican drawings, contained in his Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the American nations. The symbols, however, of the Americans appear to have had little or nothing in common with those of the Egyptians. The written language of the Chinese, on the contrary, exhibits, in some cases,