By this discovery, a vast progress has been made in the ethnography and history of ancient Africa. Two facts of the greatest consequence have been established by it:--That the Libyan language was that of Numidia, at the early period of its history, when the Phoenicians were settled there; that the Numidians of that early day, used their own peculiar letters for writing their own language. To these facts, may be added another of no less ethnographic value; that the present Numidian or Berber race of the great Sahara, who are called Tuarycks, make use of these identical letters at this day. For this recent and valuable acquisition to science, we are again indebted to Mr. de Saulcy,[39] who has published a Tuaryck alphabet as communicated to him by Mr. Boisonnet, Captain of Artillery at Algiers. It was furnished to him by an educated native of the Oasis of Touat, in the great Sahara, and is called by him _Kalem-i-Tefinag_.[40] What the _writing of Tefinag_ means, it would be curious to know. This Touatee, Abd-el-Kader, has promised more extended information, in relation to the writing of the Tuarycks, than which, no more valuable contribution to African ethnography can be imagined. He asserts that, the Tuarycks engrave or scratch on the rocks of the Sahara, numerous inscriptions, either historic or erotic. This subject has been alluded to by Mr. Hodgson, in his "_Notes on Africa_" in which he mentions the Tuaryck letters copied by Denham and Clapperton. The impulse first given by our countryman Mr. Wm. B. Hodgson, in his researches into the Berber language, and the ethnographic facts which were the results of his elucidations, has extended to England, France and Germany, and the last two years have been productive of several valuable and important works, including grammars and dictionaries of the Berber language. These have added greatly to our previous knowledge of the ancient and primitive people, who at a remote period, coeval with that of the ancient Egyptians occupied the northern part of Africa.