De Saulcy still adheres to his alphabetical interpretation, and it is no doubt the syllabarium of Rawlinson that is ‘the essential error’ he sets himself to remove. His transliteration accordingly consists, as the reader will have observed, of an immense agglomeration of consonants which the student is left to bring within the possibilities of human utterance as best he may. It is clearly a comparatively easy task to arrange a number of signs according to the simple consonantal sounds they contain. Hincks reached this point in 1847, and De Saulcy’s latest effort seems to carry us back to that rudimentary stage of the inquiry. Here we find the signs distributed among the various classes of gutturals, dentals and so on, exactly as in Hincks’s Table seven years before. It is possible that the later writer is more complete and accurate; it could scarcely have been otherwise, considering the large amount of data now available and the impossibility of not being guided, to some extent at least, by the Syllabarium of Rawlinson and Hincks. Yet in this elementary work of simple classification there are numerous errors he might have escaped if he had condescended to place more dependence upon their authority. Thus, for example, among his gutturals we find (of course bare and stripped of their vocalic garments) the signs for _ip_, _up_, _al_ and _zi_. His dentals include two gutturals, the signs for _ga_ and _gi_. Among his labials he gives us the signs for _as_ and _ku_. Among his linguals are those for _ki_ and _su_ and they include the signs for the syllables _tar_, _kur_ and _rit_; while the sign for _ul_ is found among the sibilants. Notwithstanding all his efforts to escape syllabic values, he was forced to enumerate a few—_kam_, _ak_, _akh_, _at_, _bar_, _far_, _in_ or _an_, _ar_, _as_, _is_. Some of these are correct; but not even here would he submit to authority, and he has accordingly blundered. His _ak_ should be _uk_, his _akh al_, his _far par_, and of the two signs he gives for _as_, one should be _si_ and the other _sur_, while his _is_ should be _us_. With few exceptions all these might have been found correctly given by Rawlinson three years before. Hincks had long ago pointed out in his Khorsabad Essay (June 1849) that a clear distinction is maintained between the vowels, and between the surd and sonant consonants. Yet here we find the signs for _m_, _w_, _ou_ and _b_, and those for _l_ and _r_ all classed indifferently together. His treatment of the vowels is not less behind the knowledge of the time. The single vowel _a_ is represented by no less than seven signs that really express _an_, _a_, _ap_, _i_, _ruh_, _man_, _it_. Two of these signs, according to De Saulcy, also express _ha_, and one either _e_ or _i_. _Ha_ has four signs, none correct. They are really the signs for _a_, _it_, _i_ and _il_. He was correct in supposing the language contained two diphthongs,