Such was the method that enabled Burnouf to restore one correct value, _b_, that had been recently neglected, and to add two others, _z_ and _k_, to the alphabet. He was on the point of increasing the number of correct values by two or three others, but unfortunately he hesitated to yield to his first intuition. In the twelfth line of the I inscription he found a word which, according to his alphabet he transliterated ‘Arion.’[399] It occurred in a position in the geographical list that would naturally suggest that it indicated ‘Armenia,’ and to obtain this result it was only necessary to change the sign (𐎷) which he read _i_ into _m_. There was a farther reason that appeared to justify this alteration. In the Hamadan inscription the same sign occurs in _bu_ _i_ _om_, which he translated ‘excellent’; but if it were permitted to alter the _i_ into _m_ we should obtain _bumom_, ‘earth.’ The meaning of the sentence would then be: ‘He has given [or created] this earth; he has given [or created] this heaven,’ which would be an evident improvement in the sense.[400] He would not, however, allow that the alphabet could include more than one _m_, and he was not prepared to sacrifice the _m_ (𐎶) discovered by Rask in the genitive termination _anam_. Thus he narrowly missed adding the _m_ (𐎷) before _i_ to the number of his correct values. So also in line 11 there occurs a word he reads _ayura_, but by the change of the _y_ into _th_ he would arrive at ‘Athura,’ the ancient ‘Aturia.’[401] This change was farther sanctioned by another name, which his system transliterated _pryi_; but by the hypothesis under consideration, it would become _prthi_, a manifest form for ‘Parthia.’ Moreover, the same alteration would introduce an important improvement in the word for ‘king,’ which would then read _khchâhthôh_ (from the Zend _khchathrô_) in place of _khchâhyôh_.[402] Notwithstanding all these probabilities, he finally rejected the alteration and lost the addition of another correct value. It is interesting also to observe how nearly he approached the correct value of Grotefend’s _h_ (𐎹, No. 27). He perceived that if it were changed into a _y_, it would yield _yuna_ in the twelfth line, which there could be no doubt would indicate ‘Ionia.’ As it is, however, he retained the incorrect value; and he could find no satisfactory explanation of _huna_; for he, of course, rejected ‘Huns’ as an evident anachronism.[403] It would be tedious and unnecessary to go through the other signs to which he gave new values, for they unfortunately all turned out to be wrong. Indeed, if his services to decipherment were to be estimated by this test alone, they would not rank higher than those of St. Martin or Rask; for although he lays claim to have ascertained the value of twelve characters, eight of these are erroneous, one (the _b_) fairly belongs to Münter, another (the _a_) to Grotefend, and only two remain to be placed to his own credit: