prefaced by an Etude in which he attempts to interpret several of its pages. It is painful to be unable to say a single word in favor of his views. They are thoroughly untenable and groundless. The Abbé Brasseur deserves the highest praise for his ardor and devotion to archæological studies, but his theories do not bear a moment's examination. They are so utterly wild that we are almost afraid to state them. He imagines that these inscriptions and manuscripts all contain geological reminiscences, chiefly concerning the submersion of a portion of the American continent and the consequent formation of the West India Islands. He explains all the letters as "expressive images of the cataclysm of which they are the phonetic expression." The culture of the Mayas and Aztecs he regards as the debris of a far higher civilization, which once extended over most of the American continent, and from which that of ancient Egypt (!) was derived. He insists on the identity of the ancient Maya and Aztec tongues, for which there is not a shadow of proof, and going further, claims that they are both derived from Germanic roots. Of course, with such notions as these, his "interpretation" of the Manuscript is an absurdity, and can never obtain a serious hearing in scientific circles.

A very different student is M. H. de Charencey, long favorably known for his researches into the Basque language, the dialects of Central America, and other critical publications. In the first volume of the Actes la Société Philologique (Paris, 1870) he has an "Essai de Déchiffrement d'un Fragment d'Inscription Palenquienne." He takes for his subject the famous "bas-relief of the Cross," found on the back of the great altar at Palenque. It is portrayed in Stephens's Travels in Central America, and more carefully in the work of Cabrera on the ruins of Palenque, from a drawing by M. de Waldeck. It seems to represent the ceremony of baptism, or something analogous to it. The central figures are surrounded by inscriptions. Immediately above the bird which surmounts the cross is found this character:—

This he analyses as follows, commencing at the right: h (variation of No. 13 of the alphabet), o (variation of No. 22 enclosed in a circle), nab (the Maya word for the palm of the hand which supports the middle letter), ku (variation of No. 17),=honabku. This, in the orthography hunabku, a discrepancy of no great moment, is a familiar Maya name of divinity, and means the only, or the one God. The course of argument by which he supports this analysis is careful and judicious.

The second group which M. de Charencey analyses is this:—

This he resolves, commencing at the right hand upper figure, proceeding from above downward, and from right to left, into the following letters of Landa's alphabet:

u, ku, ku, l, ca, nab,

meaning "it, or those, of the Kukulcan." Kukulcan, however was the name of the hero god of the Mayas, corresponding to the Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs. His worship was introduced into Yucatan subsequent to the ninth century of the Christian era, and his name means in Maya precisely what Quetzalcoatl does in Aztec, namely, "the serpent with quetzal feathers," the quetzal being a species of parrot with bright green plumage. This interpretation, therefore, if admitted, fixes an important date in Central American history; for it proves that the erection of the extraordinary monuments of Palenque, which were found in ruins at the conquest, took