mas, Vis. i.2, ii. 2, iii.1 (bis), 2, 10, iv.1; Sim. v.4, ix.2,11; Orac. Sibyl. ii.310, viii.355; Babrius, Fab. x.8; Barnab. Ep. c. 21; Mart. Polyc. c. 12; Const. Apost. ii.16; while it found confirmation in none. He also cited the notices of the word by Hermogenes, Apollonius Dyscolus, Suidas, and Zonaras, taking occasion to suggest an emendation of Suidas under púra, where the editors have not observed that ¿Over with the words that follow is merely a quotation from Babrius (x.8). Mr. Abbot then proceeeding to an examination of airéo, called attention to passages of the New Testament in which the word does not imply a humble asking or supplication, as Luke 1.63, xii.48, Acts xvi.29, 1 Cor. i.22, 1 Pet. iii.15 (compare Deut. x. 12, 2 Macc. vii. 10), and which serve to show that the distinction between airéw and ¿porάw in Hellenistic Greek does not depend upon the relative dignity of the asker and the person asked. He proposed the following distinction: airéw is generally to ask for something which one wishes to receive, something to be given or granted, rarely for something to be done: it is therefore used when the object sought, rather than the person of whom it is sought, is prominent in the mind of the writer; and hence is very rarely employed in exhortation. 'Epwráw, on the other hand, is generally to request or beseech a person to do something, rarely to give something; it refers more directly to the person of whom the favor is sought, and hence is naturally used in exhortation, as in the Epistles of Paul. This distinction was illustrated chiefly by an analysis of the construction of all the known examples of Eporáw in the sense of 'to request, compared with that of all the examples of airéw which occur in the New Testament, the Septuagint, the so-called Apostolical Fathers (including Barnabas and Hermas), the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Epistle to Diognetus. It appeared that, among sixty-six or sixtyseven examples of έpwráw in the sense of 'to request' or 'entreat,' there were only six or seven in which the object asked for is expressed by an accusative; in a great majority of cases the object is expressed by an infinitive, or by iva or inwс with the subjunctive, or indirectly by an imperative; the thing asked for being usually something which the person asked is requested to do. In the 197 examples, on the other hand, of airéw or airovμa in the authors referred to, there is not a single instance in which the thing asked for is something which the person is directly requested to do; generally, it is something to be given, and the object asked for is expressed by an accusative. Among the passages of the New Testament particularly discussed in the paper were 1 John v.16, Eph. iii.13, and John xvi. 23.

6. On the Ninevitic Cuneiform Inscriptions in this country, by Rev. Wm. Hayes Ward, of New York.

The cuneiform inscriptions in this country are very few, consisting mainly of mural slabs, taken from a single palace of Assurnazirbal, found at Nimroud, the biblical Calah, by Mr. Layard. The interior walls of this palace were covered with alabaster slabs ornamented with human and mythological figures, and each slab was disfigured by an inscription, which was repeated almost with no variation on all of them. There have been a score or two of the slabs sent to this country, and distributed among our colleges-Yale, Amherst, Williams, Dartmouth, and Union Colleges, among others-and the Historical Society of New York possesses slabs with this inscription.

According to the French Assyriologists. Assurnazirbal ascended the Assyrian throne July 2, 930 B.C.-as computed from an eclipse which happened on that day and reigned twenty-five years. He was coutemporary with the biblical kings Ahab and Jehoshaphat. He was one of the most warlike of the Assyrian monarchs, reaching in his campaigns the mountains of Kurdistan and Armenia, Syria, Phenicia, and Carchemish. His "Standard Inscription," published by Rawlinson, contains a full account of his campaigns.

The palace from which these slabs were taken was 360 feet long by 300 wide, built on a raised platform overlooking the Tigris. It contained a long central hall, surrounded by ceiled chambers, whose sides and floors were covered with these sculptured slabs. By the kindness of the officers of Amherst College, photographs were sent to me, and the translation offered is n erely a first attempt at the translation of an Assyrian text. It has, of course, been translated before by Assyriologists who have access to it in the London and Paris museums; but it has never, to my knowledge, been published in the cuneiform text, nor in a translation. There

are, no doubt, errors as well as some lacune in the translation, but the substance of it is quite reliable. The figures in the translation refer to the lines of the Amherst slab from which the translation was made. The paper, as presented to the Society, was accompanied with a copy of the inscription with an interlinear transcription of each character in English letters, and with the translation of each word under it.

"The palace of Assur-nazir-bal, servant of Assur, servant of the god Beltis, the god Ninib, the shining one, of Anu and of Dagon, servant of the great gods; mighty king, king of hosts, king of the land of Assyria; son of Tiglathi-ninib, great king, mighty king, king of hosts, king of Assyria; son of Bel-nirari, king of hosts, king of Assyria; strong warrior who (2) in the service of Assur his lord marched vigorously among the princes of the four regions; who had no equal; a prince tabrate not fearing opposition, mighty leader (3) who had no rival; king subduing all disobedient to him; who rules all multitudes of men; strong champion trampling on the backs of his stout enemies; crushing all foes, even the masses of the rebels; (4) the king who in the service of the great gods his lords marched vigorously, and all of their countries his hand subdued, all of the forest country he controlled, and subjected their power, taking hostages, imposing laws over all of those

countries.

(5) When Assur, the Lord, speaking my name, enlarging my royalty, granted (?) his unstinted service for the support of my power, (I attacked) the army of the land of Lulu, [a land of] extended waters; in the midst of battle with arrows I slew [them] (6) According to the will (?) of El, of Ninib. of Yav, the gods whom I serve, I violently (?) attacked (?) the armies of the lands of Nairi, of Gilhi, of Subarie, and of the neighboring region.

I am the king who reduced under his feet the territory from the ford of the Tigris unto (7) the land of Lebanon and the Great Sea, a land not previously acquired, also the land of the Zuhi [Shuhites] as far as the city of Rapiqi; whose hand acquired the territory from the source of the river Zubnat as far as Armenia.

From the neighborhood of the land (8) of Gilruri as far as the land of Gozan, from the ford of the Lower Zab as far as the city of Tel-Bairi which is beyond the Zab, from the city of Zel-Sabtani as far as the cities of Tel-Zabdani, Hirimu, and Hirutu, and the region (9) of Kardunias, I annexed to the borders of my land. From the neighborhood of the land of Babite as far as the land of Tarmar I reckoned (?) it for the men of my land among the lands which I ruled. I established my lieutenants and imposed (10) taxes (?).

I am Assurnazirbal, humble servant (?) of the great gods, generous, stout soldier, capturing all the cities and forests, king of lords, devouring the rebellious, strengthening the peaceful, not fearing opponents, (11) not sparing his foes (?) . . . . . . king from ... a king the glory of whose face has covered (?) mountains and seas which are in the reach of his dominion. Mighty, (12) unyielding kings from the rising of the sun to its setting I . . . . .

The early city of Calah, which my predecessor, Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, had built, (13) had fallen into decay. His city I rebuilt. Captives which my hands had taken in the lands which I ruled, the land of the Zuhi not previously acquired, of the city of Sutqa near the Euphrates, of Zamua (14) along the whole of the land of Bit-Adini, and of the land of Pate, and that of Lubarna, king of Patinai, I gathered and I settled them in its midst. I threw down the old mound, and leveled it with the water. I laid in order one hundred and twenty courses on the bottom. (15) A palace of cedar, box, cypress, kui, lakkannu, butnu, and halpit wood, for the seat (16) of my royalty, for the fulness of my princedom, to endure for generations, I placed upon it. Images of animals (?) of the mountains and seas of wrought stone I. . . . . . (17) and set them up. in its gates. With plates of copper (18) I roofed it. I hung in its gates folding doors of cedar, box, fir, and lakkannu wood. Silver, gold, (19) tin (?), copper, and iron. which my hands had acquired in the lands which I ruled, I gathered in great quantities, and placed them in the midst thereof."

7. Vocabularies of certain Himalayan Dialects, by Rev. W. J. P. Morrison, Missionary of the Presb. Board in India; presented, and accompanied with comparative Tables of Hindi Declensional Systems, by Rev. S. H. Kellogg, of the same mission.

Rev. Mr. Kellogg accompanied the presentation of these papers with remarks and explanations respecting the Hindî dialects, of which the following is an abstract:

The Hindi is more extensively diffused than any language of India. It is spoken by not less than 50,000.000 people, and geographically covers all of Hindustan north of the line of the Vindhya Mountains, except Scinde and Bengal. We include the Panjab in the Hindî territory, since Urdu, admitted to be merely a dialect of Hindî, is spoken quite to the Indus, and the Panjâbî itself differs even less from standard Hindî than do the dialects of Braj or Marwar. The dialects of Hindi number not less than fifteen or twenty; though only five possess any literature worthy of the name. Rev. Mr. Morrison furnishes brief vocabularies of the Himalayan dialects of Kotgarh, Mand, Nirmaud, and Kullu, with an outline of Kullu declension. To this latter we have added a comparative table of declension and conjugation in seven other dialects, viz. Standard Hindi, the grammatical basis of Urdu, the Mohammedan dialect, native to the country about Delhi; Kanaujiya, spoken in the Lower Doab; Braj, in the Upper Doab; Marwârî, in Marwar; Kumaoni, in Kumaon, in the Central Himalaya; Bhojpurî, in eastern Oudh; and Purbiya, the antique dialect of the Ramayan of Tulsi Das, Benares, about A. D. 1572. The differences exhibited by the various Hindî dialects are lexical, phonetic, or etymological.

1. Lexical. Different dialects differ more or less in vocabulary. In Urdu, Arabic and Persian nouns and adjectives have generally supplanted the native Indian terms; the verb is commonly Hindi. Other dialects exhibit verbal differences, but nowhere so extensive as in Urdu, nor mainly restricted to one class of words.

2. The Hindî dialects exhibit phonetic differences. Variations occur in both consonants and vowels, in accordance with familiar phonetic laws. Thus, e. g., for the final a inflected of Prakrit nouns, we have a, o, or au, etc.; and the cerebral nasal is generally preferred to the dental in the Marwârî and Kumâonî, while in the Ganges valley the opposite tendency appears. Sounds not recognized in the modern Sanskrit alphabet are found in certain dialects; as e. g the cerebral ; a short ě; a as in all, with a short sound corresponding; and very commonly a cerebral r.

3. More important are dialectic differences in etymology. These respect, a, the method of declension, as analytic or synthetic; b. the inflectional endings.

a. As compared with the Sanskrit, Hindi declension and conjugation in all dialects is rather analytic than synthetic; but they differ in this respect among themselves In the dialects above enumerated, analytic forms have nearly cast out synthetic forms of noun declension, except in the Kullu, whose whole declension is synthetic; and the antique Purbiya, where a scanty synthetic declension still largely prevails. In pronominal declension, all these dialects retain true inflectional datives and accusatives throughout, and in the first and second persons inflectional genitives also. The Purbiya again commonly, and the Kullu uniformly, exhibits here a synthetic declension. In the case of verbs, analytic forms of declension prevail exclusively in these dialects in all tenses denoting action completed, except the indefinite perfect; while in all tenses denoting action simply as future, synthetic forms are invariably retained. In all tenses denoting action in progress, analytic forms largely prevail, but here the dialects, in the present, differ among themselves.

b. We have also differences in inflectional endings. Here we take no note of variations explicable solely by phonetic laws, but of inflections radically diverse in origin. Such differences are found in the declension of both nouns and pronouns, and in the conjugation of verbs. Thus, to illustrate, in the case of verbs we have, in our table, three general types of future conjugation: viz. 1, a future formed from the potential by the addition of a particle gå or lá; as chalunga, chalûnlâ, 'I will walk; which may be connected through the potential with the Sanskrit tense of the same name; 2, a future marked by the tense sign h (Marwârî s?), as chalihai, chalihahi, etc., thou wilt walk,' which we connect with the Sanskrit future in sya; 3, a future characterized by the tense sign v or b, as chalive, he will walk;' with which may be compared not only the almost identical Pengâlî future, but the Latin future with b, and the Celtic with ƒ as tense sign.

From such facts, we conclude that the Hindî dialects, although closely connected with the Sanskrit, are not in strict truth derived from it. For, besides forms which may be traced back to Sanskrit originals, we have many others of which we have no trace in Sanskrit, which have probably co-existed with Sanskrit forms from a date anterior to the Aryan settlement of India, finding their analogy perhaps in the distant Italic and Celtic speech.

Our tables exhibit scarcely half of the Hindi dialects; many remain to be investigated. It is then too soon to venture an opinion as to the details of their mutual relations. It has seemed, however, to the writer that the facts before us point to a possible classification of these dialects into a very few ancient families. Thus, as we have seen, the very numerous forms of the future may all be assigned to one of three or four different types. May we not find here a clue to guide us?

The day may come when, by the aid of a more minute and extensive acquaintance with these dialects, we may be able to discern more clearly the dim outline of ancient Indian history. Dialects geographically remote, in some instances present points of coincidence which remind one of the correspondent strata on opposite banks of a stream, suggesting a time when people were rent asunder by a torrent of invasion; while again, in some localities, the confused debris of unconnected forms seem to mark the ground of some fierce struggle long ago forgotten.

The Society assembled again at 9 o'clock in the morning, at the same place, and resumed the reading and discussion of communications.

8. Journal of a Tour made in March-May, 1870, from Orûmiah to Hamadan, with notices of the Antiquities, and of the existing Races and Religions, of Ancient Media, by Rev. J. H. Shedd, Missionary at Orûmiah; presented by the Corresponding Secretary.

This was a very long and detailed paper, and from it considerable extracts were read by the Secretary, with condensed statements of its other principal contents. Mr. Shedd points out that the more specially missionary aspects of the tour were presented in the Missionary Herald for November. 1870. The region is one never visited by any Americans save mission laborers, and over a part of the route taken no European is known to have passed. To illustrate the habits of wine-drinking in the country, he mentions that in a village through which he passed each man had about forty gallons to consume between vintage and Easter; abundance of drunkenness and quarrelling being the result. His southward route lay through Meandow, Sain Kullah, Kuzil-Bulakh. and Bidjar, and the return route, northward, in part over the same ground, then through Sakis, Bokan, and Souj-Bulakh. The Journal is full of notices respecting the populations along the way, and Mr. Shedd is particularly careful to note the numbers, distribution, history, and condition of the Armenian and Jewish communities throughout the whole region. The Jews he is inclined to regard as actual descendants of the Ten Tribes and remnants of their first captivity. Of Hamadan. where he spent three weeks, he points out the peculiar historic importance and interest, sketches the history, and gives a full description. Its population is between fifty and seventy-five thousand, and is increasing at the rate of several hundred houses a year. Only about thirty-five houses are Armenian, a thousand are Jewish, and the rest MohammedanPersian, Turkish, and Kurdish. Larger Armenian communities are found in some of the villages about the city. There are localities where the soil is so rich in fragments of silver and gold, coins, and other antiquities, that it is sold by the donkey-load, and washed by Jews. The sum of ten or twelve hundred dollars would now buy a very complete and valuable collection of these precious relics. The tomb of Esther and Mordecai is shown n the Jews' quarter, and appears to be authentic; a detailed account of it is given. Tombs of the Arab poet Abdul Hasif and of the physician Avicenna, with that of the Persian poet Attar, also ornament the city. Hamadan is a most favorably located centre of influence upon a great variety of nationalities. The Shiah solemnities celebrating the death of Hussein, in the month Moharrem, were witnessed by Mr. Shedd, who depicts

some of their striking scenes.

Mohammedanisn in this region, however, is a uniform mask which covers a great variety of discordant shades of faith. Bâbism is far from being extinct; the communities of Nusairis are numerous and important, forming probably a third of the population of the city and the country to the southeast; Sufism floats like a nebula over the national mind; and there are lesser sects and secret clubs without number. The apparently dominant faith seems hastening to its dissolution, and the change of temper in the Moslem population within a few years is amazing.

On the way back, Mr. Shedd visited the remarkable caves of Karaftu, but does not attempt to add anything of consequence to the account of them given by Sir R. K. Porter.

In an appendix, Mr. Shedd discusses more fully the question of the relation between the Jews of Persia and the lost tribes of Israel. He first calls attention to the number of Jews now to be found in the regions to which the ten tribes were carried captive. As regards the country west of the Tigris, he has no detailed information, but simply states the number to be considerable. But east of that river, he sets down the number of Jewish houses or families in each city and village, and sums them up at over 5,500 houses, which would give a multitude as great as that of the Jews who returned to Jerusalem at the first proclamation of Cyrus; and, considering the probable history of the captivity, respecting which he gives his views at length, this is as large a population as we should expect to find remaining. His conclusions are these: 1. Those of the Israelites who apostatized were lost among the idolaters of the Assyrian empire from the time of their apostasy. 2. The faithful Israelites became under Persian rule identified with the captivity of Judah, and the nationality of the ten tribes was lost. 3. From these "Jews," embracing since the time of Cyrus the faithful of both Judah and Israel, have gone off colonies to all the East, throughout Persia, Russia. Tartary, Tibet, and China. 4. Some, at least, of the Jewish communities on the ground are lineal descendants of the ten tribes, and their numbers sufficiently solve the problem.

A second appendix treats of the numbers and distribution of the Armenians in Persia. There are two distinct Persian centres of this enterprising people. One is in that part of ancient Armenia which still continues Persian territory, with the adjoining districts around the lake of Orûmiah. At the close of the war with Russia, in 1830. about 9,000 Armenian families (according to the ex-bishop of Azerbijan) emigrated beyond the Arras into Russian territory, leaving behind about 2.500 families, which have since increased to 3,700; their distribution is given in detail. The other centre is 400 miles further east, in Irak, and the population is the remnant of the deportation made by Shah Abbas early in the seventeenth century; they number about 4,250 families.

9. On Japanese Personal Pronouns and their Substitutes, by Mr. Addison Van Name, of New Haven.

We are not surprised to find that in the Japanese language, where the verb is without personal inflection and there is no grammatical gender, the personal pronouns are less distinct in form from the demonstratives, and less definite in use, than in our own family of languages. There is not even the distinction of a personal and impersonal object, but one form, are, answers to our he, she, and it. The primitive adverbs of place. ko, 'here,' so, a, and ka, 'there' (so of the nearer, a and ka of the more remote point), combined with the verbal stem ari, 'to be,' give the substantive pronouns, kore, this,' sore, are, and kare, 'that,' and, with the genitive suffix no, the corresponding adjective forms, kono, sono, ano, kano. Ware, a pronoun of the first, and also, though less commonly, of the second person, and evidently formed in a similar manner, is referred by Hoffmann (Japanese Grammar, p. 79) to a supposed adverb wa, which "points to the centre of space, therefore to the person speaking, to his 'I.'" But, aside from the fact that ware appears to have no special relation to the first person, the corresponding adjective form waga (ga, like no, a genitive suffix), which signifies my own,' 'your own,' his own,' indicates that wa has an intensive force, and it is by no means improbable that the emphatic particle wa, which, from being more frequently placed after the subject, has sometimes been regarded as a characteristic of the nominative case, is the same which appears in ware and waga. Another form of the pronoun of the first person