Now as the _Chinese_ and _Roman Abacus_ do much agree save only that they proceed contrary ways, so doth their way of expressing Numbers by Letters or Marks, one stroke or line signifying one; two lines two; three lines three; a cross ten; two crosses twenty; three crosses thirty; and so onwards to a hundred, which they expressed by a square Mark, and a cross with a stroak added for a thousand, as will appear by the Table annexed. And though the Characters are not all the same; yet the order and method of one agrees very near with that of the other, especially if I may be allowed my supposition, that the primitive way of Writing and Reading with the _Chinese_ was Horizontal, and like the _Greek_ and _Latin_ or _European_ way. Now that these are properly numeral Figures, or Characters, is manifest from this, that they have also word Characters for every Number, and they can (in the same manner as the _Romans_ could) express a Number by their numeral characters or Marks, and by their literal or word Characters; for as one single stroak signifies one or the first, so does the Character (_in the Plate marked with E_) signify the same thing, that is one or the first. Having thus discovered their Characters for Numbers, and their way of Numeration, I was next desirous to understand something concerning their Language and Character. Upon perusing all the Accounts I could meet with in Books, I found very little satisfaction as to what I principally inquired after, which was first concerning the method of the Character, whether it consisted of a certain number of Marks methodically disposed like Letters in a literal, or like Numbers in a Numeral, or like Radicals in composite and decomposite Derivations? 'Tis said to be legible into a great many Languages considerably different one from another, but how this is effected is not related, only 'tis said that the Marks are of the nature of our Arithmetical Figures, (which are become almost Universal at least to us here in _Europe_,) and 2dly, concerning the number of these Characters? to which I found as little satisfaction; for, by some Relations I found that there were 120000, by others 80000, and by others 60000. And that a Man must be able to remember to Write and Read at least 8000, or 10000, before he will be able to express his meaning thereby, and that it is the business of a Man's whole Life to be throughly understanding in the whole Character; seeming to intimate that the Characters are immethodical, and there are as many primitive Characters as Words. Others tell us of various kinds of Characters which have been in use in several Ages. The first they say were _Hieroglyphical_ like the _Ægyptian_ or _Mexican_, consisting of the Pictures of Animals and Vegetables. But that the last are made up of Lines and Points, that they have no such thing as Letters or Syllables, but every distinct Word and Notion has a distinct Character, and that