A. The adoption of certain signs to repre sent the various sounds of the human voice. Q. What name is given to this method of preserving and transmitting thought?

A. It is called alphabetic writing, and, next to reason and speech, is one of the greatest blessings that mankind possess.

Q. Is any thing known with certainty re specting the origin of alphabetic writing?

A. The remoteness of its origin has caused it to be buried in great obscurity, and many have even doubted its being a human invention.

Q. What alphabet is supposed to be the most ancient?

A. The Hebrew, or Samaritan, which was the same as the Phoenician.

Q. What chiefly gives rise to this supposi tion?

A. Its having been the source whence almost all known alphabets have been derived. Q. How did this alphabet find its way to other countries?

A. It was, about 1000 years before Christ,

imported into Greece by one Cadmus, a Phonician; from Greece it passed into Italy; and

from Italy it has spread over the most of the civilized world.

Q. Was there ever any other mode of transmitting thought besides that of alphabetic writing?

A. Yes; there prevailed, at one time, picture and symbolic writing,-the latter called hieroglyphics.

Q. In what did picture writing consist?

A. In drawing a picture resembling the object respecting which some information was to be imparted; as two men with drawn daggers, to denote a battle.

Q. In what did symbolic writing, or hieroglyphics, consist?

A. In making one thing serve to represent another; as, an eye to denote knowledge; and a circle to denote eternity.

Q. By whom have these two methods of writing been chiefly practised?

A. Picture writing has been practised by many rude nations, but particularly by the

Mexicans prior to the discovery of America; and hyeroglyphics principally by the ancient Egyptians.

CHAPTER III.

Of the Materials anciently used in Writing, &c.

Q. What was for some time the peculiar character of writing?

A. It was for a long time a species of engraving, and was executed chiefly on pillars and tablets of stone.

Q. What substances came next into use?

A. Thin plates of the softer metals, such as lead; and then, as writing became more common, lighter substances, as the leaves and bark of certain trees, or thin boards covered with wax.

Q. What proof is there of the bark of trees having been thus used?

A. The same word which, in many languages, denotes a book, is also used to denote a

tree, or the bark of a tree; as, liber, in Latin, which means either bark or a book.

Q. What was the next step in the of writing?

progress

A. The invention of a substance called papyrus, which was prepared from a reed of the same name, that grew in great abundance on the banks of the Nile.

Q. Were not the skins of animals often used for writing upon?

A. Yes; and it was during a great scarcity of the Egyptian papyrus that the important art of making skins into parchment was discovered.

Q. Where and about what time did this happen?

A. In the city of Pergamus; but at what time is rather uncertain.

Q. How long did parchment and papyrus continue principally in use?

A. Down to the fourteenth century, when the superior substance of paper was invented. Q. In what manner did the ancients chiefly write their letters?

A. The Assyrians, the Phœnicians, and the Hebrews, wrote from right to left, as did also the Greeks for some time.

Q. Did the Greeks abandon this plan all at once ?

A. No; they first adopted the plan of writing from right to left, and from left to right, alternately; and, at length, the more convenient mode, which at present prevails, of writing solely from left to right.

Q. What name was given to this mode of writing from right to left, and from left to right, alternately?

A. It was called boustrophedon, because it resembled the turning of oxen at the end of the ridges in the operation of ploughing.

CHAPTER IV.

Of the Scarcity of Books in former times. Q. Were books always as abundant as they are at present?

A. Far from it; for, at no very remote pe