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The first nine chapters treat of "transitional" systems of writing, commonly termed ideographic scripts. They are: Cuneiform writing (Chapter 1), Egyptian writings (Chapter II), Cretan scripts (Chapter III), Indus Valley script (Chapter IV), the Hittite hieroglyphic script (Chapter V), Chinese writing (Chapter VI), the scripts of ancient Central America and Mexico (Chapter VII), the "mysterious" script of Easter Island (Chapter VIII), and other "ideographic" scripts (Chapter IX).
The order in which these scripts are dealt with is roughly chronological, as far as the order of the appearance of these systems can be ascertained to-day.
Chapter X treats of syllabic systems of writing, namely of ancient Byblos and Cyprus, of the Japanese scripts, and of the syllabaries of African and North American natives. Chapter XI deals with early Persian and Merotic quasi-alphabetic scripts.
