_Arabic Numerals_ (Vol.ii., pp. 27. 61. 339.).-- In a work in Arabic, by
Ahmad ben Abubekr bin Wahshih, on Ancient Alphabets, published in the
original, and accompanied with an English translation, by Von Hammer, your
correspondent on the subject of Arabic numerals will find that these
numerals were not invented as arbitrary signs, and borrowed for various
alphabets; but that they are actually taken from an Indian alphabet of nine
characters, the remaining letters being made up at each decimal by
repeating the nine characters, with one or two dots. The English Preface
states that this alphabet is still in use in India, not merely as a
representative of numbers, but of letters of native language. The book is a
neat quarto, printed in London in 1806; and the alphabet occurs in page 7.
of the Arabic original.