Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/297

268 Hincks's paper ' On the First and vSecond Kinds of Pei'sepolitan Writino' was read to the Eoyal Irish Academy on June D, 1S4G, and he communicated its contents to Mr. Xoi-ris, the secretary of the Eoyal Asiatic !>ociety. wlio sent a detailed account of it to Major Rawlinson at liagdad. This letter was des- patched from London on August 20, and five days afterwards, on the twenty-fifth of the same month,' Major Kawlinson sent ofTa Supplementary Xote in which, by a yery sinirular coincidence, he introduced some im- portant mo(Uiications in his system of transliteration tliat lu'oiiaht it into substantial ai»Teement with that just then proposed l)y llhicks. Thus the two documents crossed each other on the way, a circumstance that aflbrds conclusive proof of their independent production.- J^ut as Ilincks's paper was read in June and Eawlinson's note not despatched till August, the priority nuist be awarded to the former. This was the first occasion on which Iliiu^ks had contributed to cuneiform research, and, as we lia\e said, he had' the good fortune to forestall Kawlinson in one of his most useful discoveries. When he wrote. Lassen's Second ^lemoir of 1844 was still the cliief authority on the subject, and it is to it that he directs his criticism. In lookino- over Lassen's alphabet, nothing was more remarkal)le tlian the number of signs allotted to certain supposed modifications of the same sound. Thus /•, for example, was represented by no less than lour different signs expressing /c (Xo. 4), A' (16), /S/i (ID), and Ut [4'S) : d In' three different signs. lI (11), (I'll (22), and (/// (34). At the same tune it was

^ Athemcumj December 19, 1S46.

- It took forty-four days to communicate between Bagdad and London. If, therefore, Hineks's pa])er bad been forwarded earlier, say on June 12, it would lia\ e been in Major Uawlinson's hands on July 20 ; but we have positive assurance on -Mr. Norris's authority that this w*as not the case. See the Athcnaumy loc. cit.