the tube, which must be flush with the slider on the outside, and raised in the inside about one inch from the bottom board. Through this tube the bees will enter, but instead of returning by the same way, they will endeavour to force themselves out at the small opening below the slider. When in this manner you have caught a sufficient number of the banditti, you may either burn them, or unite them with one of your own hives, without the least danger of their contaminating your bees with their thievish principles.

"Besides those outrageous robbers, there are others called spongers, who may be considered as intentional beggars, but practical robbers. They come as solitary individuals, and are always turned away by the sentinels; of course never get into the hive, unless they can creep in at some opening or by-way. If they cannot effect an entrance, they will continue about the hive until some loaded bees come home and alight at some distance from their comrades; then the sponge seizes, bites, and tears, until they vomit up their contents; which the sponge immediately licks up, and then pushes off. They are of little consequence, only as they are sometimes taken for robbers, they may occasion some unnecessary trouble."-Souder.

The nature of our task does not permit us to follow our authors farther. Nor is it important that we should do so. For the general reader, we have been already perhaps too minute; and the Apiarian may, for farther instruction, consult the books themselves. The tract of Souder is a very useful practical treatise, written in a style of winning simplicity, and indicative of an amiable disposition. It is the manual of the bee-masters of this state. Bevan's more elaborate work, incorrect and involved in its diction, and highly irregular, as to its arrangement, is still the best book on the subject; and cannot fail to interest every one, who loves to study the habits and manners of the intelligent, industrious, disciplined and frugal insect, of which it discourses.

ART. V. A Grammar of the Language of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians. Translated for the American Philosophical Society, from the German Manuscript of the late Rev. DAVID ZEISBERGER. BY PETER STEPHEN DUPONCEAU. Philadelphia, 1827.

LANGUAGE, as it is of indispensable importance, in the intercourse between man and man, and as occasions for its use, are incessantly recurring, might readily be supposed in a great measure permanent and unalterable. But if the identity of a language at different times, be thought to depend on exact similarity in the sound of words used to express the same idea, or even in the structure and grammatical forms, it must be acknowledged that in all these, is a tendency to perpetual change. "The signification of words" says Locke, "in all languages, depending very much on the thoughts, ideas, and notions of him that uses them, must unavoidably be of great uncertainty to men of the same lan

guage and country. This is so evident in the Greek authors, that he that shall peruse their writings, will find in almost every one of them a distinct language, though the same words." Essay on H. U. b. iii. ch. 9. § 22.

The doctrine, "that languages contain the history of every people, and are essential guides in the labyrinth of the descent of nations," is not peculiar to this age, nor are we the first who have been amused by splendid and fanciful structures, resting on the basis of etymological deduction; while the learned in Europe, with materials confessedly inadequate, have pressed forward to the work of generalization, and have complacently "unfolded the genealogical roll of the human race, from the earliest times to the present day," others, in various parts of the world, have more patiently laboured in collecting materials to be applied to the construction of a system of general philology. Among those who have shared this toil, the associates of the American Philosophical Society deserve honourable mention; and the work before us, is but one of a series of important papers, which their efforts, roused and guided by the zeal and intelligence of their present distinguished President, have brought to light. But in this country, few attempts have been made at extensive classification and systematic arrangement, and with one or two exceptions, our philologists have forborne any important decisions respecting the origin, migrations, and filiations, even of the people of our own country, based on the deductions of their favourite study.

The infancy of every science, is the era of golden visions, and extravagant expectations; and if future times should teach the philologists, that they were once ready to promise more than they will ever be able to perform, their case will not be entirely peculiar. But if the light which this study is to throw upon those remote traits of human history, already beyond the glimmerings of tradition, and lost in the mist of antiquity, may never attain that meridian strength and splendour it is now thought to promise yet, as in the case of chemistry, though the golden secret may be missed, we know not what important and unexpected discoveries may be in the way of those in pursuit of an unattainable end. The project of clearing up the doubts, which rest upon the early history of nations, may prove to philology, what the idea of perpetual motion has been to mechanics, the philosopher's stone to chemistry, and the universal remedy to medicine.

Languages, we are told by philologists, may be divided into groups, kingdoms, families; and these again into tongues, dialects, sub-dialects, and patois. Language is therefore, we conlude, the more general denomination. That all these divisions, ample foundation in nature, is highly probable, but that

they can all be defined by reference to permanent and universal characters, may admit of doubt. We believe all mankind descended from a single pair; we consider the whole race as but one species; whence, then, if the practice of the natural historians is to be followed, can be derived peculiarities characteristic of eight hundred and sixty human languages? In all dialects, or as they are commonly called, languages, there may be characters less mutable and uncertain, than the sound of words or syllables, and from such, should divisions be determined; but the time is far distant, when these peculiarities, in the varieties of human language, can be well understood, or even such a number of them ascertained, as might serve for the foundation of a satisfactory system of arrangement.

But though we may hesitate to adopt all the details of the systems of philologists, we are prepared to estimate the value of many of the general results and inferences, to which their pursuits may lead them, and to appreciate the aids they may afford to the study of history, and of the philosophy of the human mind. The Ethnographical Atlas of M. Adrien Balbi, to which Mr. Duponceau, in the preface to the work before us, gives a passing notice, is known in this country only through abstracts and critical notices, but it is believed to be a work of great learning. The plan, though not entirely new, is magnificent--but the execution, attended with such extreme difficulty, as must have exposed the author to some inaccuracies. The sanction which the late distinguished geographer, Malte Brun, is said to have given it by his commendation, will lose some of its importance, in the estimation of those, who, with the means of correct information in their power, will give an attentive examination to the table of etymological resemblances, by which he endeavours to support his hypothesis of numerous emigrations, to make up the stock of the aboriginal population of America. It will there be seen, not only how faint and forced are many of those resemblances, but how wholly erroneous many of the statements by which that eminent geographer was induced to suppose, that several distinct streams of population, could be traced from various parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe, to America: and all, anterior to the discovery by Columbus. It is late, one would think, to call to mind the opinions of that profound philosopher and linguist, Sir William Jones; yet the growing fondness for etymological deductions, seems to imply, either that subsequent researches had overthrown his doctrine, or that the results of his experience had been forgotten :-that etymology does not now, as in his day, "afford evidence, which is commonly fallacious, and which, where it elucidates one fact, obscures a thousand."

The design of the ethnographical atlas of M. Balbi, appears to include not only the tracing of the geographical boundaries of

existing languages, but the delineation at one view of their early history and remote connexions, the ramification of parent stocks, and the net division of branches, now so numerous and of such dissimilar aspects. Careful inquirers will, we are confident, admit his conclusions with caution; and even his classifications and divisions, particularly of unwritten languages, will meet with most ready adoption, from those who have least extensively and patiently examined the dialects of rude nations, as they exist among such people, rather than in the records of travellers. Simplicity is not commonly a predominant feature of sciences in their early state, and is in general entirely wanting in attempts to classify and arrange ill ascertained facts. It is not improbable, that more extensive and careful examinations, instead of enabling M. Balbi and the philologists of Europe, to add to the eight hundred and sixty languages and five thousand dialects already ascertained and described, "almost as many more," which are confidently supposed to exist, will show that even these numbers ought to be greatly reduced.

Closely connected with this topic of oral language, its history, and the consideration of the causes which render it liable to perpetual change, is the subject of written discourse, or the methods of communication by visible signs, used either as representations of ideas or of sounds. Here, likewise, the advance of discovery is introducing simplicity, and demolishing, one by one, the splendid fabrics and fanciful systems, that have grown up during long ages of ignorance, while the imagination revelled without restraint. The Egyptian Hieroglyphic inscriptions and records, long supposed to conceal the wisdom and lore of ages of learning and refinement, under a veil impenetrable to the men of present times, have at last been partly deciphered. These monuments, which were heretofore, to the historian and the philologist, what fossil remains are to the naturalist; memorials of times long forgotten, and of events for ever irretrievable, a theme of wonder, and a standing admonition to human pride, have, by the splendid discoveries of Dr. Young, M. Champollion, and others, been proved to contain allusions to events, comparatively recent, recorded in languages still extant, and in a method, differing only in unessential forms, from the alphabetical writings of our own times. This method forms, probably, one stage in the advance, from that rude picture writing of savage nations, to the artificial and arbitrary alphabetic signs now in use. The first attempt was, doubtless, the sketching events, as they presented themselves to the eye. The first murder, for instance, had any occasion existed for its commemoration, or for conveying intelligence of it to distant persons, otherwise than by oral communication, would be represented by the figure of a man, with perhaps some mark, such as a notable peculiarity in his dress, or person, to identify

the man called Cain, standing over the figure of the dead body of another, by similar means denoted to be Abel. In process of time, men learn that marks, indicating particulars of time and circumstance, can be introduced, and thus the rude picture becomes by degrees more complex; at length phonetic signs are produced by the natural device of making the figure of an animal, or other object, represent the first sound in the name by which it happens to be generally known. These characters once agreed upon, their value established and well known, it is in the next place desirable to reduce the labour required for their production; hence, the lion or other figure, is, by degrees, retrenched and cut down, until, in the end, it loses nearly all resemblance to its original prototype, but still retains traditionally its relation to a particular sound, for which it at last comes to be considered the arbitrary and invariable mark.

From the more full and complete investigation of the picture writing of the Mexicans and Peruvians, Mr. Duponceau anticipates interesting discoveries; and such, no doubt, may be the consequence of well-directed and patient research among their records. From accounts already before the public, we know that the Mexicans, at the time of the invasion by the Spaniards, resorted to a method of writing, very similar to that at present in daily use, among the rude tribes of North America. The arrival of the Spaniards among them, was designated by the delineation of a large vessel, and of a man with a head dress, or some peculiarity of costume, by which the foreigners were immediately distinguished from the men of their own country. This was simply a representation of the event, leaving the whole train of circumstances, the surprise occasioned, the apprehension excited, and all that might be hoped or feared from it, to the imagination of those to whom the record should be conveyed. That this method must be too defective to be used, where oral communication through persons but moderately intelligent and trust-worthy, can be substituted, must be manifest. Instances might occur, in the life of uncivilized people, where important purposes could be attained, by its assistance; and it might become an essential aid, in the preservation of a knowledge of events, or even of moral instructions, by tradition. Since, we are confident, this method, more or less improved, is common to the Mexicans, the Peruvians, and the North American Indians, it may not be amiss, a little to consider, to what extent it has been carried by the latter; as, possibly, useful hints may be thence derived, for the investigation of the records left by the former.

The picture writing of the North American Indians, is, to some extent, a business of education; and men become proficients in it, in proportion to their skill and industry. In its most.