[Footnote 145: This writing was at once recognized by learned Spaniards, like Las Casas, as entirely different from anything found elsewhere in America. He found in Yucatan "letreros de ciertos caracteres que en otra ninguna parte," Las Casas, _Historia apologetica_, cap. cxxiii. For an account of the hieroglyphics, see the learned essays of Dr. Cyrus Thomas, _A Study of the Manuscript Troano_, Washington, 1882; "Notes on certain Maya and Mexican MSS.," _Third Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, pp. 7-153; "Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices," _Sixth Report_, pp. 259-371. (The paper last mentioned ends with the weighty words, "The more I study these characters the stronger becomes the conviction that they have grown out of a pictographic system similar to that common among the Indians of North America." Exactly so; and this is typical of every aspect and every detail of ancient American culture. It is becoming daily more evident that the old notion of an influence from Asia has not a leg to stand on.) See also a suggestive paper by the astronomer, E. S. Holden, "Studies in Central American Picture-Writing," _First Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, pp. 205-245; Brinton, _Ancient Phonetic Alphabet of Yucatan_, New York, 1870; _Essays of an Americanist_, Philadelphia, 1890, pp. 193-304; Leon de Rosny, _Les ecritures figuratives_, Paris, 1870; _L'interpretation des anciens textes Mayas_, Paris, 1875; _Essai sur le dechiffrement de l'ecriture hieratique de l'Amerique Centrale_, Paris, 1876; Foerstemann, _Erlaeuterungen der Maya Handschrift_, Dresden, 1886. The decipherment is as yet but partially accomplished. The Mexican system of writing is clearly developed from the ordinary Indian pictographs; it could not have arisen from the Maya system, but the latter might well have been a further development of the Mexican system; the Maya system had probably developed some characters with a phonetic value, i. e. was groping toward the alphabetical stage; but how far this groping had gone must remain very doubtful until the decipherment has proceeded further. Dr. Isaac Taylor is too hasty in saying that "the Mayas employed twenty-seven characters which must be admitted to be alphabetic" (Taylor, _The Alphabet_, vol. i. p. 24); this statement is followed by the conclusion that the Maya system of writing was "superior in simplicity and convenience to that employed ... by the great Assyrian nation at the epoch of its greatest power and glory." Dr. Taylor has been misled by Diego de Landa, whose work (_Relation des choses de l'Yucatan_, ed.