“Antiquities” tells us that, Sanchoniatho states that the most ancient Phœnician records show that letters were invented soon after the dispersion of mankind, by Tsaut, the son of Mizor or Misraim, who was the first Egyptian Hermes or Thoth. He went out of Phœnicia, and first, with a colony of Mizrites, settled and reigned in Egypt, and, according to Cicero, gave both laws and letters to the Egyptians.

This Hermes was born in the second generation after the flood, and was not only the inventor of letters and writing, but he is also said to have delineated the sacred characters or symbols of the elements and planets, viz.,—sun, moon, earth, air, fire, water, &c.

These symbols are without doubt of very ancient origin, and Boerhæve in his Theory of Chemistry explains them hieroglyphically as follows:—