The One Primeval Language traced experimentally through Ancient Inscriptions in Alphabetic Characters, of Lost Powers, from the four Continents. By the Rev. Charles Forster, B. D. London: 1851. Part I. The Voice of Israel from the Rocks of Sinai, or the Sinaitic Inscriptions Contemporary Records of the Miracles and Wanderings of the Exode. 8vo, pp. 182. Sinai Photographed, or Contemporary Records of Israel in the Wilderness. By the Rev. Charles Forster, B. D. London: 1862. 4to, pp. 552. [pp. 533-565]

531 s~~~~~t;~ Inscr?j)tions. [OCTOBER,
No notice is taken of tbese inscriptions in any writings
subse~uent to the time of Cosmas, and il~ey appear to bave
attracted no attention until his treatise was first pnblished in
modern times by Moutfancon, at Paris, in 1T0(3. The learned
editor does not seem to have ever heard of these mysterious
inscriptions from any other quarter. lie believes that Cosmas
saw what he reports, simply on the ground of his credibility
as a wAter and a witness, though he supposes him to have
been imposed upon by some mendacious Jews, when he
imngines that they were written by the children of Israel.
Sixteen years later, in 172~, the prefect of the Franciscans in
C~iro passed throu~~ that region, and he is the first modern
writer who gives any a~count of them from personal inspection. We shall give a brief extract from his narrative presently. llis manuscript "Journal from Grand Cairo to Mount
Sinai" was translated into English by Clayton, bishop of
Clogher, and published in London. The worthy lAsh prelate,
who was thus the first to direct the attention of European
scholars to this subject was himself so profoundly interested in
it, that he offered the sum of ~500 to the traveller who should
copy and bring to Europe the inscriptions of the Wady M4~atteb. "This was soon after followed up in the East by the enterprise of Dr. Richard Pococke (afterward bisi~op of Ossory)~
the first European traveller who visited the peninsula of Sinai
with the object of examining and taking copies of its inscriptions. Additional copies were subsequently made by Montague, Niebuhr, Ruppell, Seetzen, P~nrckhardt, Lahorde, and
others. "Adequate materials" for a satisfactory investigation
can scarcely be said to have existed, however, until they were
supplied "by Rev. Mr. Gray, wl~ose collection of one hundred
and seventy-seven fairly copied Sinai tic inscriptions appeared
in 1S00 in the Transactions of tlie Royal Society of Literature." "The following device was employed by this gentleu~au and liis fellow-traveller, an Italian artist, to gain an opportunity of making il~cir copies. Finding all effi~rts vain to
induce their Arabs to stop for this purpose, they privately
agreed, on read~ing the Wady ~Iokatteb il~scriptions, where
they were to halt for the night, to loose the camels from their
pickets while the guides slept, and let them wander over the