"That nation was originated by a people led by four brothers, the youngest of these brothers assumed supreme authority, and became the first of a long line of sovereigns." (See Book of Mormon, Book of Jacob, 1: 9-11). ENGRAVED ON PLATES OF METAL. A writer by the name of C. W. Wandell says: "There can be no well-founded objection to the Nephite record, from the material on which it is engraved; for the gold plate worn on Aaron's head, on which was written 'Holiness to the Lord,' proves that the idea was known to them. Bishop Watson says: 'The Hebrews went so far as to write their sacred books in gold, as we may learn from Josephus compared with Pliny.' (Watson's Bib. and Theo. Dic. Art. Writings). "Nor is the modern, book-like form of the volume any argument against its antiquity; for Bishop Watson in the same place says: 'Those books which were inscribed on tablets of wood, lead, brass or ivory were connected together by rings at the back, through which a rod was passed to carry them.'" EGYPTIAN WRITINGS. A writer in the _Foreign Quarterly Review_ for October, 1836, says: "Lastly, the eye of the antiquarian cannot fail to be both attracted and fixed by evidences of the existence of two great branches of the {279} hieroglyphical language--both having striking affinities with the Egyptian, and yet distinguished from it by characteristics perfectly American. One is the picture-writing peculiar to the Mexicans, and which displays several striking traits of assimilation to the anaglyphs, and the historical tablets of the Egyptian temples. The second is a pure hieroglyphical language, to which little attention has hitherto been called, which appears to have been peculiar to the Tultecan or some still more ancient nation that preceded the Mexicans; which was as complete as the Egyptian in its double constituency of a symbolic and a phonetic alphabet, and which, as far as we can judge, appears to have rivalled the Egyptian in its completeness, while in some respects it excelled it in its regularity and beauty." Dr. August Le Plongeon, the eminent archaeologist of New York, in the _Review of Reviews_ for July, 1895, announces the discovery of the _sacred alphabet_ of the Mayas (the Indian tribe of Central America) is practically identical with that of the Egyptians, and that the grammatical structure of the two tongues is strikingly similar, many words and characters having the same meaning in both. His conclusion is that both these people acquired the art of writing from a common source.