the kind in the world. In the mineralogical and geological cabinets, the stranger is constantly filled with surprise at the size and value of the specimens; in orderly and effective arrangement, no people equal the French. The cabinet of comparative anatomy, collected and arranged by the immortal Cuvier, contains upwards of 15,000 specimens in eleven apartments. The number of species of plants, cultivated in the botanical garden, exceeds 12,000. On the ascent to a mound is a noble cedar of Lebanon, which was planted in 1735 by the elder Jussieu, and now measures ten and a half feet in circumference, at six feet from the ground. The gallery of zoology, contained in a building 390 feet in length, classed according to the system of Cuvier, comprises more than 200,000 specimens. The number of articulated animals, without vertebrae, are about 25,000. The arrangement begins with the lowest manifestation of animal organization, e. g. the sponge, and ends with man. The mineralogical, geological and botanical galleries have been recently arranged in a new building, under the superintendence of professors Brogniart and Cordier. The centre division contains the mineralogical and geological collection; the eastern division, the library, etc.; the western division, the botanical collections. On one side of the central division, are specimens of all known rocks and earths, arranged geologically; on the other, the fossils found in the various geological formatious. The number of mineralogical and geological specimens exceeds 60,000. Among those which were noticed by the writer were a superb vase of brecciated porphyry, some remarkably beautiful specimens of yellow, red and white topaz, two large groups of colorless quartz crystal, a series of diamonds rough and cut, a piece of massive gold from Peru, weighing sixteen and a half ounces, a fine specimen of native silver from Mexico, etc. The botanical gallery has more than 350,000 dried plants, and more than 4,500 of woods, fruits and grains. The library consists of 30,000 volumes and 15,000 pamphlets. The manuscripts, accompanied with original designs, and the paintings of fruits and flowers on vellum, form an unrivalled collection. It was commenced in 1635, and now fills ninety portfolios, with upwards of 6,000 drawings, in value estimated at two millions of francs. In the centre of the hall is a marble statue of Cuvier by David, the inscriptions upon it being the names of his works.

MEANS FOR ORIENTAL STUDY IN PARIS.

At the King's Library, No. 12 Rue Neuve des Petits Champs, near the Palais Royal, is the Ecole des Langues Orientales Vivantes. Ten profes sors are attached to this establishment, and lecture publicly and gratuitously in the following languages: Pure Arabic, M. Rinaud; Vulgar Ara

1848.]

Asiatic Society of Paris.-Journal.

199

bic, Caussin de Percival; Persian, Etienne Quatremére; Turkish, Armenian, De Vaillant de Florival; Modern Greek, Hase; Hindoustani, Garcin de Tassy; Modern Chinese, Bazin; Malay and Javanese, Dularier; Chair of Arabic at Marseilles (assistant), Eusébe de Salle.

;

The Société Orientale, meets on the 2nd and 4th Friday of every month, at No. 10 Rue Duphot. Its object is the study of modern oriental literature. It publishes the Revue de l'Orient.

The Société Asiatique holds its sessions on the 2nd Friday of each month at 7 P. M., at No. 12 Rue Taranne, on the left bank of the Seine, near the church S. Germ. des Prés. The number of paying members, resident and foreign, is 249; three of whom only are our countrymen, Mr. Brown of the embassy at Constantinople, Mr. Haight of New York, and Mr. George Sumner of Boston. The number of foreign associate members is thirty-six. The president is M. Reinaud, secretary, M. Eugéne Burnouf, adjunct secretary, M. Mohl. The council consists of twenty-two of the leading members of the society. Its object is to encourage the study of the Asiatic languages, and specially, though not exclusively, the following: viz. the various branches of the Semitic, both in Asia and Africa, the Armenian and Georgian, modern Greek, Persian and its ancient idioms, Sanscrit and the living languages derived from it, Malay and the languages of the eastern Archipelago, the Tartar languages and the Thibetan, and the Chinese. The society also procures Asiatic Mss., makes extracts and translations, encourages the publication of grammars and dictionaries, enters into correspondence with societies and individuals engaged in like pursuits, etc. The Society has published a Journal from the beginning, which now makes fifty-two volumes 8vo.; viz. first series, twelve volumes; second, sixteen; third, fourteen; fourth, ten. The cost of the whole set in Paris, handsomely bound, is about 530 francs, or $106. The publication is one of high value for all who are engaged in oriental studies. From the Annual Report of M. Mohl, the secretary, read at the annual meeting in June, 1847, and from recent Nos. of the Journal, we translate a few notices.

"M. Stanislas Julien has commenced publishing in the Journal a series of articles, drawn from Chinese historians and geographers, and treating of foreign countries and nations. It makes us hope that he will follow the whole western frontier of China, and give us all the information which Chinese historians and travellers furnish on Tartary, Bactria, Persia and India." "M. Garcin de Tassy has accomplished his work on the rhetoric of the Moslem nations. Dulaurier and Dozon have inserted in the Journal their studies on the Malays. Defrémery and Cherbonneau have given a series of memoirs on the different Arab and Persian dynasties. Fresnel, Judas and Bargès have published and dis

cussed the new Phoenician inscriptions; in short, you will receive in a few days the first part of a considerable work of M. Botta on the Assyrian inscriptions, which has for its object the classification of the characters and the determination of those which may be interchanged-a preliminary question which will be a great assistance for the entire experiment of solving the great problem of reading the inscriptions. This is the most beautiful of all the questions which at this moment occupy the learned. The object aimed at is to read the inscriptions in an unknown and complicated alphabet, and in an idiom of which one can only conjecture to what family of languages it belongs; but the importance of the result will sustain the zeal of the scholars who are occupied on this question; for the reading of these inscriptions, which are almost innumerable, will be an epoch in the study of ancient history, and the age which has seen the decyphering of the hieroglyphics and the Persepolitan inscriptions, ought not to despair in regard to any problem of this nature."

"The Asiatic Society of London has published three new numbers of its Journal, two of which contain the beginning of the fine work of Rawlinson on the great inscription of Darius at Bisitun. The author has given us the text and the translation of the inscription and the first part of his commentary on this magnificent monument of Persian antiquity." In his articles in the Journal, M. Botta "proposes to demonstrate, 1st, That in the Assyrian writing, certain characters may be used, indifferently, in the place of certain others; 2nd, that the Assyrian writings at Van, Persepolis and Khorsabad, do not differ from each other; 3rd, that if the Assyrian writing at Van should differ from that at Khorsabad by a smaller variety of signs and by a more frequent repetition of the same groups, it is only because it has less employed the equivalents, and also from the fact that the same sounds are found more frequently represented by the same characters; and 4th, that the language employed in the inscriptions in these three localities is probably the same, for the pronouns, articles and grammatical signs do not differ." The work of Botta, as published by the French government, will contain 185 engravings, representing the designs of the bas-reliefs and the plans of the architecture, and 225 plates of Assyrian inscriptions.1

1 M. Mohl justly complains of the cost of the works published by the French government, and which puts it out of the power of any one but the rich to purchase them. E. g. a copy of the Voyage of Durville to the South Pole will cost 1450 francs; the work of the Commission on the Morea costs 1800 francs; the two voyages of Texier, 1600 francs; the Journal of Flandin and Coste, 1400 francs; the work on Nineveh, 1800 francs; the Voyage to Iceland, 1825 francs. The engraving of the 225 plates of inscriptions in the work of Botta is said to be a useless expense because the royal press, where the text of the work is printed, has caused a font of Assyrian type to be cast, so that the inscriptions could have been printed in the text.

1848.]

New Hindoui Grammar-Am. Oriental Society.

201

The second edition of the second and last volume of the Dictionary, French and Turkish, of M. Bianchi, for the use of travellers, consular agents, etc. in the Levant, has been published. Both volumes comprise 2300 pages. The work is said to be very satisfactorily done. The price is 60 francs.

The work ou the History of Public Instruction in China from the third century to the present day, by Ed. Biot, is completed. It makes a handsome volume of 618 pages. It compiles and prepares from the original text the history of the higher and lower colleges established for moral and literary studies, also that of the special schools for the study of law, mathematics and medicine.

A valuable grammar of Hindoui was published in 1847, entitled, “Rudiments de la Langue Hindoui," by M. Garcin de Tassy, 8vo, price 10 francs. The Hindoui is one of the languages which were formed in India at the era when the Sanscrit ceased to be spoken. It is the language of the middle ages of those countries. It forms the transition between the Sanscrit and the modern Hindoustani, somewhat as the Romance language signalized the passage from the Latin to the French. The Hindoustani is the mixed language which was formed towards the beginning of the eleventh century, in the train of the Moslem invasion. The conquerors, having established themselves in the provinces where Hindoui was spoken, were necessarily compelled, in adopting the idiom of the conquered, to modify the grammar somewhat, to soften the forms, and to bring in a great number of Arabic and Persian terms. Besides, faithful to a system universally followed by them in all the countries where they have the preponderance, they compelled the use of the Arabic alphabet. The Hindi is the Hindoustani written in Sanscrit characters. The Hindoui was the idiom of the Hindoos before the Moslem invasion, used in many countries; the Hindoustani is spoken by the Moslems of India, and the Hindi by the Hindoo Brahmans. The Hindoustani is in India what the French is in Europe. The Chinese excepted, it is spoken by more people than any other language. But the Hindoui is of greater importance for the philologist, the archaeologist, the theologian and the philosopher. It is of this language that M. Garcin de Tassy has prepared a grammar, which may be regarded as an entirely new work. It is preceded by a very interesting introduction.

The following notice of the third No. of the Journal of the American Oriental Society, we copy from the Halle Allgem. Litt. Zeitung, Aug. 1847: "The American Oriental Society, after the death of its first president, John Pickering, well known among us as a linguist, has been or

ganized anew, and has published the third No. of its Journal. Prof. Edward Robinson of New York is now president of the Society, and Prof. Edward E. Salisbury of New Haven, secretary. The new Number of the Journal contains, first, an interesting essay on Arabic Music by Eli Smith of Beirut, partly from a treatise of Mikhail Meshâkah, a native Arab, living at Damascus, and partly from an older Ms. on Music, which belongs to the rich collection of Mr. Salisbury. From the first is borrowed especially the theory of Intervals and an exhibition of the melodies now in use; from the other, which is more concerned with ancient music, the chapter on musical rhythm and the description of the ancient Arabic guitar, while from the first, in conclusion, is taken a description of modern musical instruments. This careful labor of Mr. Smith is at all events an important supplement to that which Kosegarten supplied in his edition of Kitâb el-Aghany, on Arabic Music, taken chiefly from Fârâby. Then follow Notes on Arakan by Comstock, a deceased missionary, with a chart, together with some notes by Salisbury. Then succeed the first three chapters of Genesis, translated into the language of the Sooahelee by Dr. Krapf, with an introduction by Mr. Greenough. The essay will be very welcome in Germany, since at this moment the languages of the east coast of Africa are claiming the closer attention of several investigators. The first No. of the Journal of the German Oriental Society contains an essay on the subject by Ewald; and the next No. will bring out the labors of Gabelentz and Pott. The American Journal contains, besides, extracts from Burnouf's History of Buddhism, Lassen's Indian Antiquities, and notices of other recent works and occurrences in the field of oriental literature. All these notes are from the pen of Mr. Salisbury, and they testify alike of extensive learning and of solid, scientific judgment."

A work of great value for the history of Europe in the period of the Reformation has just been completed, viz. "Correspondence of the Emperor Charles V., from the royal archives and from the Bibliothèque de Bourgogne at Brussels, communicated by Dr. Karl Lanz." It is published at Leipsic in 3 vols., containing in all about 1400 closely printed pages. The nine Austrian universities, Vienna, Prague, Padua, Pesth, Pavia, Lemberg, Gratz, Innspruck and Olmütz, contained, according to the last published accounts, 419 professors and assistants and 15,794 students. The State expenditure for these seminaries is about 670,000 gulden per The sum of 33,072 gulden is given to 446 students as stipends. Besides these universities, there are in Austria, six institutions for the study of medicine, twelve for surgical and veterinary studies, twenty-six for juridical, 114 for theological, and 124 for philosophical.

annum.

The income of the six Prussian universities, Berlin, Bonn, Breslau, Greifswalde, Halle and Königsberg, of the academy at Münster and of