work to learn Koptic, which was rightly believed to represent the
nearest existing approach to the ancient Egyptian language. His amazing
facility in the acquisition of languages stood him in such good stead
that within a year of his first efforts he had mastered Koptic and
assured himself that the ancient Egyptian language was really similar
to it, and had even made a tentative attempt at the translation of the
Egyptian scroll. His results were only tentative, to be sure, yet they
constituted the very beginnings of our knowledge regarding the meaning
of hieroglyphics. Just how far they carried has been a subject of ardent
controversy ever since. Not that there is any doubt about the specific
facts; what is questioned is the exact importance of these facts. For
it is undeniable that Young did not complete and perfect the discovery,
and, as always in such matters, there is opportunity for difference of
opinion as to the share of credit due to each of the workers who entered
into the discovery.

Young's specific discoveries were these: (1) that many of the pictures
of the hieroglyphics stand for the names of the objects actually
delineated; (2) that other pictures are sometimes only symbolic; (3)
that plural numbers are represented by repetition; (4) that numerals are
represented by dashes; (5) that hieroglyphics may read either from
the right or from the left, but always from the direction in which the
animals and human figures face; (6) that proper names are surrounded
by a graven oval ring, making what he called a cartouche; (7) that the
cartouches of the preserved portion of the Rosetta Stone stand for the
name of Ptolemy alone; (8) that the presence of a female figure after
such cartouches, in other inscriptions, always denotes the female
sex; (9) that within the cartouches the hieroglyphic symbols have a
positively phonetic value, either alphabetic or syllabic; and (10) that
several different characters may have the same phonetic value.

Just what these phonetic values are, Doctor Young pointed out in the
case of fourteen characters, representing nine sounds, six of which
are accepted to-day as correctly representing the letters to which he
ascribed them, and the three others as being correct regarding their
essential or consonantal element. It is clear, therefore, that he was on
the right track thus far, and on the very verge of complete discovery.
But, unfortunately, he failed to take the next step, which would ha