Professor Lyon's Lecture.

Professor Lyon delivered the first in the course of four lectures on the Semitic language and literature, last evening, in Sever 5. He began by briefly outlining the geography of the country inhabited by the Semites and the history of the various branches of the Semitic peoples. These peoples claim a large share of popular interest, for they have given the world an alphabet and the three great religions-Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism.

Professor Lyon then briefly considered the scripts, the language, and the literature of the people. All the records that we have are preserved to us in writings on clay and stone. The script originally was a series of pictures; then it reached the syllabic form, and finally vowels were introduced although today in the Arabic newspapers vowels are seldom used.