Both the valley and the mountains are named from these "Inscriptions" = _Mocatteb_ in Arabic; that fact alone indicates considerable antiquity, especially in a country like Arabia, where the fashion of changing any usage, especially that of names of places, has never prevailed. The vicinity of these inscriptions to that portion of the world wherein the Mosaic law had its origin, and probably, as a necessary consequence, the invention of an alphabet also; and likewise the great question of ancient intercourse between Egypt, Ethiopia, Assyria (Chaldea), and India, have rendered the interpretation of the Mocatteb inscriptions a problem of paramount interest, insomuch that Bishop Clayton offered a considerable sum of money for a copy of them. In the _Royal Society's Transactions_, vol. ii. part vi. 1832, are specimens of 187 of these, whereof nine are Greek and one Latin. Some of them are doubtless of the sixth century. Coutelle and Roziere (_Antiquities_, vol. v. p. 57.) copied seventy-five of them, and Pococke and Montague give a few specimens. Seetzen, Burkhardt, and Henneker _saw_ them; and Niebuhr may be said to have been sent out expressly on their account, but the result was _nil_. Cosmus, Montfaucon, Neitzchitz, Monconys, Koischa, and others, mention them, and they have been seen by a caravan of persons familiar with Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, Latin, Armenian, Turkish, English, Illyrian, German, and Bohemian, to all of whom they were equally inexplicable. Since the discovery of Daguerre, we are placed in a position to obtain a real _fac-simile_ of the whole of these inscriptions, at a small expense of time or money. Any person familiar with the use of the daguerrotype (the less learned the better) could now speedily furnish what the good Bishop so fervently longed after, were he only provided with the small sum of a few hundred pounds to take him thither and bring back his invaluable treasures. Although the Mocatteb are graven with an iron pen in the rock (Job xix. 24.), they are not everlasting, for the rains have had some effect in obliterating them, being cut, not on granite, as was formerly thought, but on red sandstone. It is worth remark, that although Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, he rejected entirely the hieroglyphic system of writing, and that no mention or allusion is made to the art of writing till 1491 B.C., in Ex. xvii. 14.[1], just prior to the delivery of the law, and in connection with the account of Jethro, his father-in-law; subsequently, constant allusion is made to writing. There is only one reference to this art in Homer (_Il._ z. 168.). The author of Job, who appears to have had a much more enlarged knowledge of art and science than Moses, speaks of the cutting and painting (for so the Arabic and Hebrew words should be rendered, and not _printing_) on a roll, _i.e._ with the _style_ and _brush_; also of the cutting (_felling_) with a chisel (in