the first be inseparably connected with the root _idea_, but in time when the sign had become cursive and developed and no longer resembled the original picture, the various phonetic values of the sign would not necessarily have anything whatever to do with the original root idea. For example, a character with the _meaning_ and _phonetic_ value of the word “_win_,” would in later times come to represent the syllable “_win_” quite apart from the basis meaning of the word win, thus the sign could be used to represent the first syllable in the word _win-ter_. In 1857 the Royal Asiatic Society proposed to test the reliability of the translations put forward by scholars of the Assyrian inscriptions in the following manner: some eight hundred lines of cuneiform writing contained on clay cylinders found by Layard at Ḳalat Sherḳat, the ancient Ashur, were to be independently translated by any scholars who were prepared to accept the proposal; the translations were to be sent under seal to the society’s secretary, and were to be opened together and examined before a commission on a set day. Rawlinson, Fox Talbot, Hincks and Oppert entered the lists, and on May 25th their respective products were opened and compared. The great similarity which they all displayed afforded conclusive proof as to the correctness of the method of decipherment, and demonstrated finally that the investigations carried on, together with the results of those investigations, had not been mere speculative guesses, but were based on sound scientific principles. Many other scholars deserve our gratitude for the share they took in the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions, of whom one may perhaps specially name Westergaarde, Löwenstern, De Saulcy and Longperier, but for an account of the particular achievements of each, the reader must refer to general works on the subject.[43] CHAPTER IV—CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS