due to Rawlinson.[789] He was able already (1847) to announce that he had ‘obtained a tolerably extensive alphabet from the orthography of the proper names’; but he adds: ‘I have left the grammar and construction of the language hitherto untouched.’ He had, however, been greatly struck by the number of signs with apparently equivalent sounds.[790] He found it difficult to admit the existence of variants in the same inscription, except such as were caused by slight changes in the writing of the same character. He saw, however, that no such explanation would cover all the difficulties of the case, for some of the substitutes were obviously totally distinct in form. In this case he did not believe that they were ‘legitimately interchangeable.’ He thought the ‘phonetic organisation of the language was so minute and elaborate that although each form was designed to represent a distinct and specific sound, yet the artist was perpetually liable to confound the characters.’ He suggested also that each consonant had a different sign to express the surd and sonant; and in some cases one might be substituted for the other. The ‘vowel-sounds,’ he declared, ‘were inherent’; but it was allowable also to represent them by separate signs; and farther redundant consonants were frequently introduced for the sake of euphony. These opinions were immediately traversed by Löwenstern, in his ‘Exposé des Eléments’ (1847). This tract followed the sudden, though happily transient, conversion of Hincks to the application of the Semitic vowel system to the Babylonian writing. Löwenstern embraced this view with characteristic energy; and it was adopted also by De Saulcy, in whose case it became one of the chief causes of the ultimate failure of his Assyrian studies.