^, V] <^ /a % AT/ V ^;. V /A IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 11.25 • 50 ""^^ 2,5 2£ 1.8 U 111.6 Photographic Sciences Corporation 4 // 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716)872-4503 A V' ^ .fe, ^ f/. y ^ if. t!? L<*/ CIHM/ICMH Microfiche SerieSr CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques \\ Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may bo bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a M possible de se procurer. 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Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one txposure are filmed beginning in the upper -ft hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent Atre filmAs A des taux de reduction diffArents. torsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul ciichA, il est filmA A partir de I'angle supArieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. rrata o }elure, 1 d 3 32X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 >^^^^WT^ <. / V Toronto Public Library ALPHABETIC OR SYLLABIC CHARACTERS IN CAVES ON THE GLENELG RIVER, N. W. AUSTRALIA. By Rev. John Campbell, LL.D., Professor of Cliurch Histoiy, Montrea]. (Riiul hffort the Awatrtdasian Association for the Advanttment o/ Scienee, Tuesday, lUh January, 1898.) The characters of the brief inscription you have sent me a copy of. are easily recognisable as those of the ancient Turunian syllabary employed by the ancestors of the Japanese and kindred peoples, of which inscriptions are found in Siberia and Japan, and of which the Corean alphaV)et is the lineal descendant. The Buddhist syllabary of India and the south-east of Asia has the same origin, but is of a different type; so that I have but little hesitation in calling the Australian inscription ancient Japanese — as ancient, perhnps, as the tenth or eleventh century, for in 1125 A.b., as the Khitan, the Japanese were expelled from China, and doubtless carrie> In the light of many inscriptions read by me, I transliterat^'as follows : — ^ / < L^ ( ki or chi or shi sa chi or shi Put into words these read : — kiochi csa shi hopeless number is Osa governs kiochi in the genitive by position ; hence we read, "The number of the hopeless (ones) is." Here we have the meaning of the dots in the right hand, which are no doubt units, 21, 24, 17, in all 62, perhaps purposely put in three unequal lines to mark a triple distinction of rank, vessel, habitation, or sub- ordinate local origin. NoTB.— The inscription referred to wilt be found on Plate IX, A.A.A.S. Reports, Vol. vl, Brisbane Session, 1895. 83666(16) I 1- ^ ¥^ 4 if\ '^ ^ %1^-i It is plain that six^y-two Japanese were cast ashore on the west coast, somewhere near the placo ^ which the inscription is found ; that their junk or junks were so totally destroyed as to render the castaways hopeless of return ; and that they most have found Hufficient means of subsistence to enable them to 'live some time — long enough at least to complete this task. Their landfall can h;vrdly have been later than the beginning of the 12th century, because there is every reason to believe that at that time the old characters were superseded by the present modified Chinese. I have no repi-esentJifion at hand of Japanese idols, or of ancient conventional representation of the clothed human form, but perhaps you can Hud such, and compai*e with the figure of the inscription. What became of the sixty-two castaways ? Is there in Western Australia any tradition of tui ancient tribe of foreigners and of their massacre, or is there any trace of their amalgamation. They must have brought with them copper tools and other implements and ornaments. Is there any trace of them beyond this cai-ving ? I need not say that ethnologically there is no near relationship of the Japanese and the Melanesian, so that the native origin of the document is out of the ques^^on. Inscriptions in the same character and language are found in this continent, as yOu will see by the accompanying paper by me. The ancestors of those who wrote them were driven to the American coast by the elements, having been, in all likelihood, banished from home to the n.ercy of (h^vean. The sixty-two of your inscription may