NOTE—This representation of Yucatan hieroglyphics is a reduction of pl. i. in Léon de Rosny’s _Essai sur le déchiffrement de l’écriture hiératique de l’Amérique Centrale_, Paris, 1876. Cf. Bancroft, iv. 92; Short, 405.] When the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg found, in 1863, in the library of the Royal Academy of History at Madrid, the MS. of Landa’s _Relacion_, and discovered in it what purported to be a key to the Maya alphabet, there were hopes that the interpretation of the Maya books and inscriptions was not far off. Twenty-five years, however, has not seen the progress that was wished for; and if we may believe Valentini, the alphabet of Landa is a pure fabrication of the bishop himself;[1086] and even some of those who account it genuine, like Le Plongeon, hold that it is inadequate in dealing with the older Maya inscriptions.[1087] Cyrus Thomas speaks of this alphabet as simply an attempt of the bishop to pick out of compound characters their simple elements on the supposition that something like phonetic representations would be the result.[1088] Landa’s own description[1089] of the alphabet accompanying his graphic key[1090] is very unsatisfactory, not to say incomprehensible. Brasseur has tried to render it in French, and Bancroft in English; but it remains a difficult problem to interpret it intelligibly. Brasseur very soon set himself the task of interpreting the Troano manuscript by the aid of this key, and he soon had the opportunity of giving his interpretation to the public when the Emperor Napoleon III. ordered that codex to be printed in the sumptuous manner of the imperial press.[1091] The efforts of Brasseur met with hardly a sign of approval. Léon de Rosny criticised him,[1092] and Dr. Brinton found in his results nothing to commend.[1093] No one has approached the question of interpreting these Maya writings with more careful scrutiny than Léon de Rosny, who first attracted attention with his comparative study, _Les écritures figuratives et hiéroglyphiques des différens peuples anciens et moderns_ (Paris, 1860; again, 1870, augmentée). From 1869 to 1871 he published at Paris four parts of _Archives paléographiques de l’Orient et de l’Amérique, publiées avec des notices historiques et philologiques_, in which he included several studies of the native writings, and gave a bibliography (pp. 101-115) of American paleography up to that time. His _L’interprétation des anciens textes Mayas_ made part of the first volume of the _Archives de la Soc. Américaine de France_ (new series). His chief work, making the second volume of the same, is his _Essai sur le déchiffrement de l’écriture hiératique de l’Amérique Central_ (Paris, 1876), and it is the most thorough examination of the problem yet made.[1094] The last part (4th) was published in 1878, and a Spanish translation appeared in 1881. [Illustration: PALENQUÉ HIEROGLYPHICS.