In discussing the growth of language, we surmised that words were at first descriptive of the things they named, in fact, pictures to the ear. What, then, is a written word? Is it, too, a picture, and what does it picture, to the eye? When we have written the words _cat_, _man_, _lion_, what have we done? We have brought the images of certain things into our minds, and that by a form presented to the eye; but is it the form of the object we immediately think of? No, it is the form of its name; it is, therefore, the picture of a sound. To picture _sound_ is, surely, a very far-fetched notion, one that may have grown out of many previous efforts to convey thought from mind to mind; but certainly not likely to occur first to those who began the attempt to give permanent shape to the thoughts floating within them. So great and difficult a task must have baffled the powers of many enterprisers, and been approached in many ways before the first steps towards accomplishing it were securely taken. We shall find that the history of our alphabet is a record of slow stages of growth, through which the idea of sound-writing has been evolved; the first attempts to record events were made in a different direction. Since, as we have agreed, we are not likely to find a record of how events were first recorded, and as the earliest attempts are likely to have been imperfect and little durable, we must be content to form our notions of the earliest stage in our grand invention, by observing the methods used by savages now to aid their memories; and if we wish to determine the period in the history of the human race when such efforts are likely to have been first made, we must recall what we have already learned of the history of primitive man, and settle at what stage of his development the need for artificial aids to memory would first press upon him.