The famous stone rests on a block of red porphyry in the Egyptian gallery of the British Museum. Dimensions: 3 ft., 1 in. high; 2 ft., 5 in. broad; 6 to 12 in. thick. (_Read the “Report of the Committee appointed by the Philomathean Society of the University of Pennsylvania to translate the Inscription on the Rosetta Stone.”_)] Champollion’s work was carried on by other scholars after his death. In 1867, Lepsius discovered in the ruins of Tanis a second trilingual inscription, the so-called decree of Cano’pus, the study of which fully confirmed the theories previously advanced. The work of Lepsius gave a new impulse to Egyptian study. His immediate successor in this line of exploration was Mariette, who built up the museum of Boulaq. Many others in France, England, Germany, and America, have devoted their lives to the study of Egypt and her systems of writing. The problem that baffled alike Greeks, Romans, and all subsequent nations, has been solved at last; and the door has been opened to “a library of stones and papyri in myriads of volumes,” in which every branch of literature is represented. The crumbling walls scattered throughout “the Monumental Land” now utter intelligible words; the very implements and toys have their stories to tell; and many a tomb has yielded up its brittle treasure of papyrus, its eulogy or legend, its history or hymn. =System of Writing.=—From the earliest times the Egyptians possessed a phonetic system of writing. They had an alphabet of twenty-two characters, consisting of consonants only, which became the basis of the Phœnician, and through it of every ancient and modern European alphabet. Besides these consonants, there were in use numerous syllabic signs, in which two or three consonant sounds, or a consonant and a vowel sound, were represented by one character. Owing to the absence of vowel signs, it was often next to impossible to discriminate between words composed of the same consonants, but having different significations (as it would be in English, if, for instance, we should write _s t r_ for _star, store, stair_, or _straw_, and leave the signification of the three consonants to be determined by the context). To obviate this difficulty, the Egyptians early invented a simple system of _determinatives_. A determinative is a picture of the object described by the word in question, and was placed after the name. Thus the word _rômet_, signifying _man_, was followed by the picture of a kneeling man, {hieroglyph} as was also every word signifying a male human being or his occupation. After the word _himet_, signifying _woman_, after the names of goddesses, the proper names of women, and all words denoting female human beings, was placed the picture of a woman sitting. {hieroglyph} After the names of gods occurred a typical representation of a god. In like manner, to the names of Egyptian cities was attached the representation of a plan of a city, while the