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SEPTEMBER, 1885.)
BOOK NOTICES.
263
Then again when .فظ زض ما مه and ث س ص
For printing Vedic texts, besides the above, an with. A general Oriental journal is bound to additional l would be necessary, and the follow provide for the wants not only of one language ing vowels :
in one character, as in the case of Sanskrit for instance--but for groups of languages in groups of characters, and even for languages alien to
each other written in the same character. Take นิ นิ นี้
the requirements of Hindi, Pañjabi, Bangall, and
Marathi, all capable of representation in the 1
Devanagari character, and take the sounds of e é è ai ai a o ó ò
3 and as d and dh and also ass and ph: take āu āú aù
again the sound in Bangali of and as something The simplicity and economy of this system is
like ð and oi : and again the frequent short e and apparent, because for ordinary Sanskrit type ito in the modern dialects. Even the specialized would be merely necessary to add to a font of variety of the Persian character used for the ordinary English type a, m, n, 1, $ !; 7, 1, m,
Indian languages clashes in many ways with the and optionally and !. These last are so rare that
native Devanagari, and great difficulties arise as to adding macrons and dots to shaved letters will ordinarily suffioe. For Vedic type, having due we come to represent Arabic itself we are conregard to frequency of occurrence, only a', 7, ū fronted with a double pronunciation--a native à, l would be necessary additions, judicious and an Indo-Persian--of many letters, as , , shaving and adding diacritical marks on separate s, which leads to the transliterations of athir pieces of metal sufficing for the rest. As an
and asir and of dha and su for identical words additional advantage it is claimed that, if a press
in the vernacular script. Again, if we reprewished to provide itself with complete Sanskrit sorts' on this system, no cutting of new dies
sent the Arabic and the Burmese by th, as we would be necessary, as, by shaving and adding the
ought, in English transliteration, what is to bediacritical marks to existing types and then
come of y! Once more, in Malay and in electrotyping or stereotyping, matrices for the Arabic we have. In the former it is ng and necessary sorts' could be easily made at very in the latter all the vowels with a guttural small expense.
sound. . In this Journal the system of transliteration If we are to reform transliteration we must used has grown to be what it is much after the work on very wide and general lines; nevertheless fashion as we fancy to be the case with most a practical contribution such as that under periodicals of any standing, and the main difficul. review towards the better rendering of even ty to be contended with is this, that we have not one language in English characters is very one language or one system of alphabets to deal welcome.
BOOK NOTICES. THE ELEPHANT PIPES IN THE MUSEUM OF THE, discovered elsewhere, and accordingly the posses
ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES, DAVENPORT, IOWA, U.S.A., by CHARLES E. PUTNAX.
sion of these unique relics of antiquity by the This is a curious pamphlet, and shows that the Museum of the Davenport Academy has given it searcher after knowledge is no safer from attack a 'deserved eminence, since the importance of unjustifiable and otherwise--in the New World the find as testifying to the degree of civilization than in the old. The Davenport Academy of among the ancient American populations is Natural Sciences, entirely supported by voluntary obvious. In the Second Annual Report of the subscriptions and work given to it from pure love Bureau of Ethnology for 1880-81 and written of science by enthusiasts, who look for no pecu. then, though not published till last year, in a niary rewards, has been in existence some twenty monograph entitled "Animal Carvinge from years, and has published four volumes of Pro. Mounds in the Mississippi Valley," by H. W. ceedings. Some members of the Academy, in Henshaw; there appeared a most severe criticism 1877, discovered two elephant pipes' and three of the work of the Davenport Academy, doubting 'inscribed tablets' in what is known as 'mound the genuineness of the find and the good faithNo. 3'on the Cook farm adjoining the city of Daven- & much more serious matter of the finders. The port. Such things do not appear to have been pamphlet before us is issued with the object of
* At last the modified form of a properly wed for ng is often thus printed.
