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McClelland's Geological Inquiries.

533

ART. IX. CRITICAL NOTICES.

Some Inquiries in the Province of Kemaon relative to
Geology and other Branches of Natural Science. By
Assistant Surgeon JOHN MCCLELLAND, Member of the
Royal College of Surgeons in London, &c. Calcutta,
1835. 8vo. pp. 384. With 10 Colored Plates.

Ir was always to us a matter of great regret, that we had no means of knowing any thing certain respecting the structure and composition of the famous Himalaya Mountains. High mountains present admirable facilities for ascertaining the relative situation and age of the rocky layers which repose upon their sides; and we justly supposed that the giant Himalaya had opened wide the book of nature, and left its pages for the instruction of man. At this time, while public attention in Europe and America is devoted to the interesting subjects of geological research, and the sublime revelations discovered on "tables of stone," call forth our feelings of admiration and delight, we cannot fail to rejoice to receive from the distant mountains of India, such evidence as is now before us, of the wide spreading of science in that portion of the world.

It is surprising, that the British government has never ordered a regular geological survey of its valuable possessions in India. It would seem, that a country teeming with mines of gold and diamonds, besides many other more useful minerals, should have called forth a most minute scrutiny, even were there nothing more to be gained than mere commercial wealth. In the few instances where the government has patronized the travels of scientific men, our author observes, that "the motives have been, rather the extension of commerce than the promotion of science; and often so exclusively, as was calculated to defeat, rather than to serve, even the mere object in view;" for they were generally so overloaded and crippled with instructions, that they were unable to make such explorations as would turn to any account. Such instructions are altogether useless, and worse than useless; for the scientific explorer knows best what ought to be done, while those who give the instructions perhaps know nothing about the country in question, and are wholly incompetent to direct a complicated and difficult survey.

The author visited India as an Assistant Surgeon in the army, and while performing the arduous and responsible duties VOL. XLVI.-NO. 99.

68

Then as to the nouns.

A specimen like the p

of Mr. Roy would be as follows;

Book, a noun, used with various prefixes;

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Now would not this be a performance of our the letter? And would it not open the eyes of al grandeur, the beauty, and the copiousness, of the guage?

Yet this is neither more nor less than what M posed to do; (not what he has done, except very small part) and is, in all respects, as import he promised to do. There is no earthly differen the two cases, excepting that in English we wr nouns (designating the various persons of the verb ly from the verbs; and so our pronominal adjectiv the nouns; while in Hebrew, the corresponding f corporated with the verbs or nouns, and suffixed or them. But this makes not a jot of difference as ciple concerned. Our proposed English lexico all respects, be as good a model as Mr. Roy's H if he had fully executed his plan.

T

What useful end could any man have in view, dictionary with such forms as those which sprin addition of the Hebrew formatives and suffixes? than he could have, by putting them into an Engl ary, according to the example as given above. and suffixes formative for one verb in Hebrew, are and suffixes for all verbs. And so with the prono to nouns. When the learner has mastered the m he has the whole in his possession. It is worse therefore, to repeat all these in a dictionary. Co the plan of Mr. Roy is essentially a bad one; but tion is still worse.

We must say a word on the lure held out to tyr dictionary before us is "a pronouncing dictionary,

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of the kind ever published." The standard among the Jews, the author says, "is precisely the same laid down in this work."

Among what Jews, we ask? The Jews of Palestine and other Oriental countries practise one mode of pronunciation; the Moorish, Spanish, and Portuguese Jews another; the Dutch, German, and French Jews another; the Polish Jews another; and (we doubt not) the Chinese and Tartar Jews another. Which of all these is " precisely the same ” with that in the work of Mr. Roy?

Let us next see what kind of a guide the beginner in Hebrew has, who is just making his first efforts to lisp its difficult and nicely distinguished sounds? The very first column in Mr. Roy's Lexicon presents us with Qamets, Pattahh, and Hhateph Qamets, all sounded alike, and of the same length, and all represented by the English a. Which, of at least four sounds that this letter has in English, does Mr. Roy intend that the student shall employ? And are the long, short, and halfvowels of Hebrew all of one sound, and of one length?

The and (col. 4) are both represented by ch. Is the tyro to sound both alike? And is ch to be sounded, as it commonly is in English, like k, or as ch in choose? Or is it to be pronounced as a German ch? Not a word on this subject from Mr. Roy.

The at the end of words, where it is a mere Quiescent, he represents by h. Is the reader to give this an aspirated sound, or is it a silent h? Nothing in Mr. Roy's book distinguishes between the two.

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The with or without Daghesh lene he represents by d; are the two forms of the letter possessed of the same power? Yet he distinguishes from; also from, from, etc.; why not then carry this through the Beghadhkephath?

When an Aspirate has a Daghesh forte in it, he sounds the first of the two letters as aspirated, the second as unaspirated; e. g. 2 bav-bar, instead of bab-băr, a mode of pronouncing, which is contrary to all good usage. Vav, as a consonant, he sounds w; Tseri he expresses by ai, etc.

With Mr. Roy all vowels are of the same length; none of them are marked as to quantity. Moreover, the student is never told, which of the many sounds that all the English vowels have, resembles that of the Hebrew vowel which it is intended to represent.

VOL. XLVI.

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- No. 99.

67

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Is not this like the blind leading the blind? possible, that the beginner, guided by Mr. Roy, speak a language which even the exquisite Bar himself would not be able to understand?

He tells us, in his Preface, that "the chang and omission of consonants are explained, so th culties of the student in this important respect an And yet, extensively as we have examined his wo not met with a single instance where this is d purpose, nor with any intelligence of the true n case. On the contrary, the student who follows fail of being misled. E. g. in 12 (which he ha after, and therefore entirely out of its proper says the second radical is dropped, and that this sated by Qamets [under the ]. What in the which is sense, this does or can mean, we are no to guess. We had supposed, as is the root of and as 12 (1 person singular future) stands for si Aleph being dropped in the abridged form because that in such a case the third radical is dropped, a second. But what the compensation by Qamets with all this, or how Qamets, the common præformative here, whether the word is written p fective, is any compensation for the omitted, appropriate to be unravelled by the writer of the story, and not by us.

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Bad, intolerably bad, as all this is, yet we can reader, that it is a fair specimen of most of the this nature, in Mr. Roy's Dictionary.

We could extend our remarks to other "prefer leged in the Preface of Mr. Roy. But we have o have wearied ourselves out, and our readers also. nothing to be gained, by travelling any longer over Zahara, in which there is not a single oasis to meet the eye. All, all, is a na.

But we know well, that there is a graver side o part of our subject should be viewed; and to th small reluctance, we must now come.

We highly commend the enterprising publish work, because they meant it for good, and emba property in order to accomplish this good. T doubtless led to do what they have done, by the

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dations of Mr Roy's labors, which were proffered to their inspection. On these, therefore, delicate as the subject is, we must bestow a little of our attention.

First we will take some notice of the Rabbinical commendations, which are presented to the reader in order to sanction and commend the work of Mr. Roy.

The first Rabbi is J. B. Seixas, Chief Rabbi of the Syn

agogue of New York. Of him we have no particular knowledge. We can only say, that if he is the son of the late Rabbi Seixas of New York, who understood the Hebrew well, we cannot imagine by what fatality he could have been led to profane a scholarly name, by attaching it to such a testimonial.

But there is another Rabbi here, who stands by himself; and although we are strangers to him also, yet Mr. Roy has given us some opportunity of forming a little acquaintance with him. This gentleman's name is Enoch Zundel. He tells us, in his short recommendation, that he comes from the Holy Land, even from the city of Jerusalem; and that Mr. Roy is one of the most critical Hebrew scholars that he has met with,Gesenius not excepted; also, that Mr. Roy's Lexicon "will be a great acquisition to American literature."

Laudari a laudato viro has always been accounted an honorable thing; and that we might not be ignorant of the high acquisitions and critical powers of Master Zundel, Mr. Roy has let us into an important secret, in the body of his Lexicon.

Under, a Hebrew word, we find snugly crowded in the Chaldee name of the famous scribe Ezra, . After paying a tribute to his memory, Mr. Roy tells us several things. (1) that the Jews were indebted to their return from the Babylonish captivity to this pious and distinguished scribe." Now the return of the Jews was in the first year of Cyrus, i. e. 536, A. C.; and Ezra came up to Jerusalem, with a small retinue, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, i. e. 457, A. C. See Ez. vii. 1 et seq. In other words, Ezra went up from Babylon to Palestine, some eighty years after the main body of the Jews had quit their exile.

Thus much for the commencement of the paragraph respecting Ezra. The sequel surpasses even this. It is enclosed within marks of quotation in Mr. Roy's Lexicon, and printed in Italics, so that the reader might not unluckily overlook it.

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