be impossible to read all communications, and some can only be noticed as received. Besides the sittings of the Sections, which are detailed in the Programme, the Congress will visit in the daytime the principal museums and institutions which contain objects of art and antiquity connected with the East. Its first visit will be to the British Museum, where such members as are interested in the different Sections will find abundant materials of the old and modern East to occupy their attention. The great Egyptian and Assyrian collections deposited in its galleries, and the numerous Phoenician, Punic, Himyaritic, and other Semitic inscriptions, are particularly worthy of notice, and the visit will be preparatory to the sitting of the Semitic Section, to which it will form an excellent introduction.

In order to reduce the labours of the Congress to a definite order, the meetings have been reduced into Sections, one for each of the five days from the 15th to the 19th inclusive. These Sections are the Semitic, Turanian, Aryan, Hamitic, Archæological, and Ethnological. They embrace all the topics, linguistic and scientific, connected with the East. The Semitic Section will consider both the extinct and modern Semitic languages; in other words, to that Section has been relegated the consideration of such Semitic languages as are written in Cuneiform characters, for the Cuneiform inscriptions include some certainly not of the Semitic family. But the mass of the inscriptions of Assyria and Babylon are Semitic, and the characters and languages were extant from above twenty centuries B.c. to almost a century A.D., or the days of the Roman Empire. The discovery of the reading of the Cuneiform by Grotefend in 1803 was one of the most marvellous applications to the resolution of the problem of an extinct language of which there existed no bilingual inscription as a key. Since the evolution of the name of Darius, the study has advanced in an unprecedented manner, no fewer than five languages-viz. Persian, Median, Babylonian, and two sorts of Assyrian-having been deciphered and interpreted, and the history of these Oriental empires having been examined from their original documents and contemporary sources, thus relieving us from the necessity of relying upon secondary information afforded by Greek and other authors. The discovery of the Persian by Grotefend, subsequently perfected by the labours of

Burnouf, Lassen, and Rawlinson, was succeeded by that of the Babylonian and Assyrian by Hincks and Rawlinson; and it is precisely these last two languages which have produced a golden harvest of results, when their reading is completed by the labours of Prof. Oppert, Mr. G. Smith, and Mr. Fox Talbot. A light entirely new has been thrown on the mythology and history of these old Semitic nations. The fact of another language called the Accadian or Sumirian, extinct like the Assyrian, but not easily referable to a particular stem, although supposed to be of the Turanian stock, is an unexpected addition to the knowledge of the languages of Western Asia. It is not to be supposed that discoveries so startling have been received without incredulity or opposition. The nature of these languages, written in a complex syllabary which only finds its parallel in the abnormal script of Japan, and the difficulties which first attached to the decipherment of the names of gods and kings, caused the first attempts to be coldly received by scholars especially devoted to Semitic studies. These doubts have, however, since given way to convictions, and the truth of Assyrian researches has been finally recognized.

The study of these ancient languages, which may be classed as extinct, in contradistinction to those which, though no longer spoken, have yet had their knowledge preserved by tradition, and which are called the dead, is strictly inductive. The examination of the logical deductions to be made from the position of a word in different passages is found to be as important, if not more so, in determining their meaning as their comparison with words in existing or dead languages supposed to be cognate. The consideration of some of these points will occupy the attention of the Semitic Section, as well as the nature of the grammar and structure of the Sumirian, the Elamite, and the Median. Besides these linguistic questions, others in connexion with the history and mythology of the old Semitic nations will be considered in that Section. Nor is it more than necessary to revert to the priority that these early languages have in the study of comparative philology, owing to the undoubtedly remote age of the early monuments on which the languages appear, and their showing its change and development in the course of centuries. It is impossible to exclude these old grammatical structures, these oldest of all words, from the arena of that study, for without

them the study must be considered as incomplete. The same observation also applies to the researches into comparative mythology and the evolution of ancient religions, for it is only by the consideration of the Semitic myths that a true appreciation can be made of the extent to which Western Europe was influenced by the traditionary legends of Babylonia and Assyria. The researches also into the astronomy of Babylon and Assyria are scarcely less interesting, and the evidence of the cuneiform records of these people goes far to confirm the high antiquity traditionally handed down of the astronomical observations of the Chaldeans. If that branch of the subject is at present incomplete, at all events the labours of M. Oppert and Mr. Sayce have approached the subject, and it will be impossible to write the history of ancient astronomy, in which the Babylonian and Assyrian observations and astronomical knowledge are omitted. If, indeed, the astronomy of these nations was disfigured by or due to a superstitious astrology, intermingled with omens, some bearing a great affinity to the practices of the West, there still remains the comparison of the astronomy with that of Greece, which was derived at a later time from the Alexandrian schools.

The historical inquiries have resulted in a still greater conflict of opinion, and M. Oppert will bring these divergences before the Section; for it cannot be concealed that the comparison of the chronology of the Jews and the Assyrians, as it at present stands, does not harmonize-there is a want of synchronism. It is not possible to decide at present where the error lies, but nothing but an act of violence, such as the alteration of text, or the forced hypothesis of an omission of years in the Assyrian canons, can at present reduce them to a common level. The difficulty has many bearings, and affects history generally; and could these differences be reconciled, that alone would entitle this Congress to be regarded as marking an epoch in the annals of ancient historical investigation. The unfortunately defective state of the present knowledge of the history of Babylonia, owing to the want of adequate monuments, which still lie inhumed in the country, prevents the investigation of the history of that country from being more accurately known, and some doubtful chronological and historical points from being settled. Considerable service to the publication of papers and memoirs on this subject has been rendered by the learned societies

in this country, particularly the Royal Asiatic Society, the Royal Society of Literature, and the Society of Biblical Archæology, and by different scientific journals, especially the Zeitschrift für Aegyptische Sprache of Berlin.

The Turanian Section comprises all the languages of that class, and will in the present Congress consider subjects connected with the Chinese language and literature. It is not necessary here to do more than briefly allude to the extent of the literature of China and the mass of old writings which have survived the repeated conflagrations which have overtaken it. Notwithstanding the labours of the French Sinologists, especially M. Stanilas Julien, numerous points of historical interest remain to be considered. One that came under their notice was the history of the Han dynasty, a period remarkable for its relations with other States, and its political reforms; for it was in that remote period that the system of competitive examinations was first introduced into the political organization of the Chinese Civil Service. A translation of the most important works of that time was proposed at the Congress of Paris, 1873, and, could it be carried out, would add considerably to the knowledge of the geography and ethnology of Indo-China. So many subjects of interest about Japan were discussed at the Paris Congress, that there remains scarcely any of great importance to treat of in the present Congress; but the study of Japan, its language and its literature, deserves our highest sympathy, from the remarkable phenomenon of the welcome Japan has offered to Western civilization, and the fact of its interesting peculiarities of language and writing, notwithstanding the impress it has received from the Chinese script and literature. The comparison of its language with others of the Turanian family deserves great attention.

One of the subjects which will be referred to in the Turanian Section is the interpretation of the Etruscan language. That tongue, which belongs to the extinct class, has exercised the ingenuity of Europe for more than a century, and the difficulty of solving the mystery has always been a reproach to the power of decipherment and interpretation exhibited in the rapid progress made in the Semitic Cuneiform and Hamitic Egyptian. Since the work of Lanzi, various inquirers have referred it to the different European languages, Lanzi himself to the Greek and Latin, Sir William Betham to the Irish, M. Judas to the

Hebrew, another inquirer to the Teutonic, and the Rev. Isaac Taylor to the Turanian stem. Mr. Taylor proposes laying his views before this Section, and the subject is one worthy of the attention of the Congress, as in the discussion that will very likely ensue it will probably be shown whether it should be considered a Turanian or an Italian dialect, to which latter class the opinions of scholars have generally inclined to assign it. The views of Mr. Taylor will, however, have specially to be considered, and the proofs he wishes to bring forward in favour of his hypothesis will be passed under examination. The great difficulty about the Etruscan language is that the words do not appear to be directly connected with the Italian dialects as they are at present known, and the inscriptions are, although numerous, too short to enable sufficient comparisons to be made to determine logically the meaning of words not being proper names which are found in the different texts.

The Aryan Section will have papers on the Sanskrit literature and subjects connected with it, and the flood of light which the study of this language has thrown on the history of European languages has made its study the most favoured of Oriental languages. There is supposed to be found the original source of the very tongue in which this Address is delivered. It is, as all are aware, a literary, not a monumental language, as no monuments inscribed in Sanskrit or its nearest Indian dialects are older than the fourth century B.C. It is a problem yet to be solved, what was the oldest Aryan alphabet? Was it Greek, Syrian, or Lycian? As yet none is known older than the seventh century B.C., and of course they are all comparatively recent compared with the Egyptian and Babylonian. Among the languages of the Aryan Section attention should be directed to the Lycian, as it is certainly one of the oldest which appear on the monuments. This dialect, limited to a small locality in the south-western coast of Asia Minor, and written in a mixed Greek and Phoenician alphabet, has not yet been interpreted to any extent, although the alphabet has been deciphered. It was in 1839 that the late Sir C. Fellowes first brought to England trustworthy copies of Lycian inscriptions. Several of these were bilingual, and the language has been supposed to resemble the Zend; but the interpretation has been suspended, and although attempts have been recently made to affiliate it to the Slavonic and even to one of the Celtic languages, it must still be