quivalent of a _gesture_ expressive
of the notion of covering as well as of that of measuring. This
gesture would seem to be the holding of one hand above the other,
horizontally, at some distance, palms opposite or both downwards.
This, or some similar gesture would most naturally accompany the above
terms. As for _tibik_, night, compare (_Dunbar_): 'The two hands open
and extended, crossing one another horizontally.' The idea of covering
evidently enters into this conception. The strange adverb _tibi_ ('I
don't know where,' &c., or 'in a place unknown to me'), if
derived from the same root, would originally signify 'covered.' In
_titibisse_, or _didibisse_ (it rolls, it turns), the reduplication
of the radical syllable indicates the repetition of the gesture, by
holding the hands alternately above one another, palms downwards, and
thus producing a rotary motion.

"In German, the clasping of the hands in a horizontal position,
expressive of a promise or the conclusion of a bargain, is frequently
accompanied by the interjection _top!_ the same radical consonants
as in _tib_. Compare also the English _tap_, the French _tape_, the
Greek, [Greek: tupto] the Sanscrit _tup_ and _tub_, &c."

GESTURES CONNECTED WITH THE ORIGIN OF WRITING.

Though written characters are generally associated with speech, they
are shown, by successful employment in hieroglyphs and by educated
deaf-mutes to be representative of ideas without the intervention
of sounds, and so also are the outlines of signs. This will be
more apparent if the motions expressing the most prominent feature,
attribute, or function of an object are made, or supposed to be made,
so as to leave a luminous track impressible upon the eye separate from
the members producing it. The actual result is an immateriate graphic
representation of visible objects and qualities which, invested with
substance, has become familiar to us as the _rebus_, and also appears
in the form of heraldic blazonry styled punning or "canting."

Gesture language is, in fact, not only a picture language, but
is actual writing, though dissolving and sympathetic, and neither
alphabetic nor phonetic.

Dalgarno aptly says: "_Qui enim caput nutat, oculo connivet, digitum
movet in aere, &c., (ad mentis cogitata exprimendum); is non minus
vere scribit, quam qui Literas pingit in Charta, Marmore, vel aere._"

It is neither necessary nor proper to enter now upon any prolonged
account of the origin, of