ble thing a hundred years ago, and we shall be none the humbler because we committed a great folly. Perhaps the fittest state of mind for getting through the world is to be neither optimist nor pessimist, but to take things as they come and make the best of them, satisfied that, if the world makes progress on the whole, it is a progress ever at the cost of incessant blundering waste, and blind contest between chaotic and antagonist forces. If, however, the opti mists are to have great field-days at frequent intervals, it would be as well that the pessimists should occasionally take a turn. Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Greg should be invited occasionally to add a few shades to the glowing pictures of Dean Stanley and other popular orators. They would be equal to the task.

ciency has improved in proportion to its conceited because they did a consideracostliness, and whether, if our ancestors had a Wilkes to represent them, we have not a Kenealy. Perhaps too he might find some profitable material for humiliating reflections in contrasting the America of 1876 with the America of the Revolution. It has grown rich and populous, but has it not developed certain questionable products with a still more rapid growth? Might not something be said about log-rolling and wire-pulling and Erie railroads, and antipathies between North and South, and even about the contrast between a Grant and a Washington? To bring out fairly all the unpleasant sides of the contrast, it would doubtless be best that a supply of English orators should be sent to the United States with a reciprocal importation of Americans to us. But in such a case it would be necessary to have a strong force of police present at the various celebrations, or to agree that no demands should be made by either country for damages, direct or indirect, done to overzealous orators.

From The Spectator.

MR. SMITH'S ASSYRIAN DISCOVERIES.

Or, if we take the more personal kind IN a lecture before the Society of Bibliof centenary, we might still find room for cal Archæology, on December 3, 1872, reflections more profitable than agree- Mr. Smith gave a translation and account able. If anything should be said about of a recent discovery which he had made Byron's weaknesses and vices a few in the great collection of cuneiform inyears hence, it will probably be to the scriptions in the British Museum of the effect that we ought to congratulate our-Chaldean account of the deluge. The selves on our superior respectability. resemblances - though with wide differYet we might ask whether there is not ences between this account and that of a contrast of a less gratifying kind. If the Bible were such as to attract more we are more respectable, is it not true popular attention and interest than would that we are less masculine? and if it otherwise have been awakened by the happens that some of our popular writers subject; while to certain philologists are as little bound as he was by the there was the further attraction in the ordinary considerations of morality, do announcement that the tablet (of which they not sink into a kind of vicious three copies, though all imperfect, had writing more hateful because less virile? been found) was one of a series of twelve, We abuse our excellent ancestors for not giving the history of an unknown hero, rewarding the merits of a Burns. It was whose adventures, it was suggested, very wrong, but at any rate they had a might bear some legendary relation to Burns; and the art of spoiling a genius the twelve signs of the zodiac, and thus by flattery, or encouraging his most mor- add new evidence in favour of the fashbid tendencies, does not seem to have ionable doctrine of solar mythology. been entirely lost in modern times. To The proprietors of the Daily Telegraph, take stock of our shortcomings as well as emulous of their great New York conof our advantages should surely be part temporary, came forward with an offer of any wise system for recalling the re- of a thousand guineas to be expended in markable men and events of former days. making further researches at Nineveh for But any such sentiments are inappropri- the recovery of more of these interestate in the incoherent conviviality which ing inscriptions, if the expedition were seems to be regarded as essential to cen- conducted by Mr. Smith, and the Teletenary celebrations. And therefore we graph supplied by him from time to time are forced to think that they are not for with reports of his travels and his disthe most part very profitable perform-coveries. The trustees of the British ances. Americans will be all the more Museum gave their consent and leave of

absence to Mr. Smith, who accordingly in another copy of the same inscription left London on the 20th January, 1873, which was already published. and reached Nineveh and Mosul (the modern city on the opposite side of the river) on the 2nd of March. Another month passed before the arrival of the firman, without which the governor would allow no excavations, and even forbade though Mr. Smith did not submit to this restriction any visits to the sites and ruins of the ancient cities. But at last he was able to begin.

After a month's work at Nimroud, Mr. Smith returned to explore the site of Nineveh,-"a large enclosure, covered with low mounds, surrounded by the ruins of a magnificent wall, about eight miles in circuit, and broken on the western side by two great artificial mounds, Kouyunjik, or Tel Armush, and Nebbi Yunas." These mounds (the latter of which is now crowned with an Arab vilThough most of Mr. Smith's readers lage, and named from a tomb supposed to will have been already acquainted with be that of the prophet Jonah) were covMr. Layard's fuller accounts of his exca-ered with palaces and temples by succesvations, carried on for a much longer sive kings of Assyria, in a fashion like period and with such wonderful results, that in which the Roman emperors they will find in the report of Mr. Smith's crowded the forum and the adjoining visit to the same places the sort of pleas- hills with like buildings. The excavaure which comes from a second visit to tions of Mr. Layard and of the Turkish an old familiar place of interest. He government brought to light the remains first began, as Mr. Layard had done be- of the palaces of Vul-nirari (B.C. 812), fore him, at Nimroud, twenty miles south Sennacherib (B.C. 705), and Esarhaddon, of Nineveh, and the mounds of which son of Sennacherib (B.C. 681), at Nebbi cover the remains of the ancient Assyr- Yunas; while the northern mound of ian city of Calah, which, from the magnifi- Kouyunjik is occupied by the remains of cence of the still-existing ruins, must palaces of Sennacherib and his grandson have rivalled Nineveh itself in impor- Assurbanipal, the Sardanapalus of the tance, at some periods of Assyrian his- Greeks, and appears from the inscriptory. Here Mr. Smith found the trenches tions to have also formed the site of four excavated by Mr. Layard still partially temples,- to Ishtar, Nebo, and Meroopen, and the remains of the palaces of dach for which there was sufficient Shalmaneser II., Sargon, and Esarhad-space on a part of the mound where no don, with their vast courts, halls, and buildings have yet been found. Among chambers, and the gigantic winged hu- these ruins, in the Kouyunjik mound, Mr. man-headed bulls and lions at the en-Smith had been at work for a week, when trances, of which many still may be seen (on the 14th of May), on sitting down in their places, though some of them are" to examine the store of fragments of familiar to us all at the British Museum. cuneiform inscriptions from the day's The details of Mr. Smith's excavations digging, taking out and brushing off the here are curious and interesting, - -re-earth from the fragments, to read their mains of steps, apparently to an upper contents," he found one which contained storey; walls of rooms plastered and col- the greater portion of seventeen lines of oured in horizontal bands of red, green, inscription belonging to the first column and yellow; drains with bricks inscribed of the Chaldean accounts of the deluge, on the under side with a legend of Shal- and fitting into the only place where maneser II. (B.C. 860); and in one of there was a serious blank in the story. the rooms a brick receptacle let into the Mr. Smith does not say precisely, but we floor, covered with a brick, and contain- suppose him to mean that this fragment ing six terra-cotta winged figures, closely belonged to another copy of the story, packed, and each having a lion's head, four and not that it was the missing bit of the wings, one hand across the breast, hold-actual tablet of which the rest was in the ing a basket in the other, clothed with a dress reaching to the feet, and probably put there as charms to preserve the building from evil spirits. But no inscription of historical interest was now found here except the upper portion of a tablet of Tiglath-Pileser II., the contemporary of Ahaz, king of Judah, whose name is found among Tiglath-Pileser's tributaries

British Museum; for he apparently found this new fragment in the north palace, while those which he discovered in the British Museum, and of which there were three copies, were from "the Assyrian library," which we suppose to be that found in the south-west palace. The "surprise and gratification" of the discovery were followed by disappointment when, on

Mr. Smith telegraphing to the Dailyquested him to reverse this order to stop my Telegraph what he had found, he was men, which he did, and then we discussed the informed in reply that the proprietors con- questions between the excavations and the sidered that this discovery of the miss-Turkish orders. I declared I was favourable ing fragment of the deluge had accom- to Turkey, and should be very glad to see the plished the object they had in view, and and to that end I should be glad to show them Turkish government have a good museum, that they declined to prosecute the exca- a number of good antiquities, and assist them vations further. Mr. Smith, therefore, in getting others; but I said I could not part returned home, but the trustees of the with half my collection without spoiling it, British Museum sent him out again in and doing them no good. I said I was sent the autumn of the same year with a grant to collect fragments to complete our inscripof £1,000, to make further excavations tions, many of which, being imperfect, were during the remainder of the time allowed now useless; and I stated that if they took by the firman which the proprietors of these fragments, they would not be complete the Telegraph had obtained, and which or satisfactory inscriptions, but they would prevent us from completing ours; and I asked they now handed over to the trustees, to- them what would be the use, if they had one gether with the excavating plant. This half of an inscription at Constantinople, while time expired on March 10, 1874, and Mr. we had the other half in London? At this Smith was able before it had elapsed to reasoning the Turks laughed; they said they make many important additions to the did not understand antiquities, and if I pointed collections of the previous year. His anything out, I should point out worthless narrative of his two expeditions is lively things to them; and they must have half of and interesting; his adventures are amus- the things I collected, to make sure they had ing to read, and we hope for him to re- good ones. My visit ended without any satismember, though they must have often factory result, and from that time I was subbeen harassing enough at the time. The guards I could trust, the Turks saying that by jected to perpetual annoyance. I was refused shabby tricks of the local Turkish offi- kindness I had won the men to my interest; cials even in spite of the firman and of my movements were watched, a scribe as a distinct orders from Constantinople spy was set over the works, and my superinwere frequent; he twice found himself tendents were called up before the court and the bearer of letters which he was told charged with concealing the antiquities. . . . would direct the next authorities to for- Before leaving the town, I pointed out to the ward him on his road, but which proved Turkish officers who had charge of the collec to be intended to delay or annoy tion I had given to the Porte a number of fine his excavations were hindered by various sculptures and a colossal statue, which I recommended them to remove to Constantinople, devices, the latest of which was a charge but they said they would not pay for removing of blasphemy laid to his dragoman. Here them; and I had even to give them a box to is a specimen of the annoyances to which keep the smaller antiquities in, which I had he was perpetually subject: presented to them.

him;

Orders were afterwards sent from Bagdad The latter half of Mr. Smith's volume to Mosul to impede me on my return, to place consists of a more or less detailed aca guard upon me, and not to let me leave count of the results of his excavations, Mosul without giving up half the things I had which altogether were carried on for less discovered to the Imperial Museum. I have than four months. Besides a number of stated that when at Aleppo I had sent to ask interesting objects, such as rings, seals, one of the irregular soldiers who attended me to meet me at Nisibin. On arriving at Nisi- lamps, statues and statuettes, or idols, bin, I soon found that he had not come, and and part of an astrolabe, he obtained when I reached Mosul I heard the reason. It more than three thousand inscriptions, or appeared that on receiving my message, ap-fragments of inscriptions, many of which plication was made through the French con- complete the fragments already existing sul to allow the man to come and meet me, in the British Museum, while others add and the pacha announced that the man should to the previously discovered legends, be sent; but when the messenger's back was turned, the Turk reversed the order, and said the man should not be permitted to leave the town. It is this line of conduct which makes it so difficult to deal with the Turks. When, on my return to Mosul, I visited the governor, he told me part of the difficulty, and declared that he should have to carry out his instructions, and he had therefore sent to stop my men from excavating until he saw me. I re

lists of kings, astronomical and geographical records, laws, contracts, deeds of sale, letters, despatches, and some more of those bilingual tablets, syllaba

* Assyrian Discoveries; an Account of Explorations and Discoveries on the Site of Nineveh, during 1873 and 1874. By George Smith. With Illustrations. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Seane. 1875.

66

ries, and other lists which—as we explained in a former article in the Spectator- have thrown so much light on the decipherment of the inscriptions, by revealing the fact of the existence of another earlier language than the Assyrian, which supplied the written form of the latter with that ideographic element which has still to be distinguished from the phonetic, or alphabetical, in deciphering the inscriptions. As Mr. Sayce says, in the preface to his Assyrian Grammar," The cuneiform characters were primarily hieroglyphics (like the Chinese), and were invented by a Turanian population of Babylonia. These in their several dialects assigned various names to the object denoted by the same hieroglyphic, and when the latter came to be used as a phonetic character, the various names became so many phonetic sounds; every character, however, continued to be employed as an ideograph as well as phonetically."

Our space does not allow of our giving even a summary of Mr. Smith's account of the historical or astronomical inscriptions brought home by him. Many of them, as he says, have still to be copied and translated, and we may add, studied and re-studied, before the value of these discoveries can be appreciated. The accounts of the astronomical tablets and of the part of an astrolabe found in Sennacherib's palace are very curious; so are those of the directions (as they seem to be) for inscriptions to be carved by workmen over the various sculptures in the palace, such as "Line of battle of Teumman, King of Elam," "Head of Teumman, King of Elam," and others. Then we have a petition to Sennacherib to order repairs in the queen's palace, a deed of sale of a slave-girl to one of Sennacherib's palace-women; contracts of sale of the time of Sargon, of which the body (as we understand Mr. Smith) are in Assyrian, while on the edge is a docket in Mr. Smith gives a new translation of Phoenician,- such as "the sale by Althe deluge-legend, introducing the con- malek of the cultivated field," agreeing siderable portions which he discovered with the cuneiform inscription on the as described above, and making some tablet itself; and other curiosities of Aschanges in those of which he had orig-syrian literature. Most of these new tabinally read and published a version. lets seem to have come from that vast Among these is the substitution of the collection which Mr. Layard first opened name of "Hasisadra" for "Sisit," and in what he named the Library Chamber, he points out that Hasisadra appears to in the palace of Sennacherib at Kouyunbe the Xisithrus of Berosus, the Chal-jik, and which Assurbanipal is supposed dean priest who wrote in Greek a history to have collected or completed. Mr. of Babylonia, from the archives in the Smith says: temple of Belus, in the third century B.C., and among the still existing frag-ried on over what Layard calls the Library My principal excavation was, however, carments of which history are two accounts Chamber of the palace. Layard, who disof the deluge, which Mr. Smith gives for covered the Library Chamber, describes it as comparison. The coincidences with the full of fragments of tablets, up to a foot or Biblical account though accompanied more from the floor. This chamber Layard by great differences are numerous and cleared out, and brought its treasures to Engstriking enough to serve as weapons of land, but I was satisfied on examining the attack and defence which the dogmatists collection at the British Museum that not one of belief and unbelief are equally skilful half of the library had been brought home, in employing against each other. We and steadily adhered to the belief that the rest will here only observe that, whether the of the tablets must be in the palace of Sennacherib. In accordance with this idea, I Chaldean or the Hebrew be the older found nearly three thousand fragments of tablegend, whether the former is a cor- lets in the chambers round Layard's Library rupted and degenerate form of the lat- Chamber, and from the position of these fragter, or the latter a revised and puri- ments I am led to the opinion that the library fied form of the other, the superior- was not originally in these chambers, but in ity of the Hebrew notwithstanding an upper storey of the palace, and that on the some fine passages in the Chaldean is ruin of the building they fell into the chambers marked alike in poetic and in moral and below. Some of the chambers in which I religious dignity. In the Hebrew we with each other, while fragments of the same have no gods flying from the deluge in tablets were in them; and looking at this fact, droves like dogs, nor gathering like flies and the positions and distribution of the fraground the sacrifice with which the occu- ments, the hypothesis that the library was in pants of the ark celebrated their deliv- the upper storey of the palace seems to me the most likely one.

erance.

-

found inscribed tablets had no communication

And in another place he says:

I have calculated that there remain at least twenty thousand fragments of this valuable collection buried in the unexcavated portions of the palace, and it would require £5,000 and three years' work to fairly recover this

treasure.

We would suggest that " Rolls House " would be a better name than "Library Chamber" for a collection of the character as well as extent thus described. And in conclusion, we commend this interesting volume to every student of comparative history, for the valuable material it affords for that method of investigation.

Geo

ANCIENT MOSQUITO-NETS.—It may, perhaps, be worth while to point out that nets to protect the persons of sleepers from the attacks of noxious insects, though perhaps at no time very common in this country, were known in former days to others beside Richard Bishop of London. There was a "bedstead with a net for knatts" in the new chamber at Sawtre Abbey, when an inventory of the goods of that establishment was made at the time of the dissolution of the monastic corporations. (See Archæologia, xliii. 1. 240.)

HERR WEYPRECHT, the leader of the Aus- | details will be found in Petermann's tro-Hungarian Polar Expedition, describes graphische Mittheilungen and Der Naturforthe auroral and magnetic phenomena of the scher for April 10, 1875. region between Novaya Zemlya and Francis Joseph Land as very remarkable. He says no pen or pencil can give any idea of the beauty of the northern lights at their greatest intensity. In February, 1874, the auroral discharge made a broad powerful stream of fire from west to east across the zenith, varied by continuous and intense swift-moving waves of rainbow-coloured light from one side of the horizon to the other. The lights also danced up from the southern horizon to the magnetic pole, making altogether the most splendid firework-nature could display, He considers the region above mentioned to be one of maximum auroral manifestation. Three kinds of aurora were noticed one a quiet regular arch, stretching upwards from the southern horizon over the zenith, and growing pale on the northern horizon. Another, consisting in more distant light-bands continually changing their position and shape, and composed either of distinct rays, or different light; and lastly, the appearance of a corona, with rays streaming from, or towards, the magnetic pole. This is usually white with a slight tinge of green, and in cases of great intensity and motion, rays of prismatic colours, often very bright, shoot forth.

He detected the well-known green line by using a spectroscope; but his instrument was feeble, and the observations not to be compared with those of the Swedish expedition.

I have met with one or two other notices

proving that these nets were in use in old days, but I cannot now call to mind where they are.

Bartholomew Glanvil, in his "De Pro rietatibus Rerum" (Trevisa's version) has a chapter in which he tells with the deep feeling of one who had evidently suffered much how

"A gnatte is a lyttell flye" that "soucketh bloudde, & hath in his mouthe a pype like a prick, and there with he percethe the flesche for to soucke the bloudde. And is gendred of rotted or corrupt vapours of caraynes and corrupt place of marreys. By continualle flappynge of wynges he maketh noyse in the ayre as thoughe he with bytynge, and waketh theym of theyr reste, and hurred ... and greueth slepynge men with noyse and

fleeth aboute mooste by nyghte, and perceth and byteth membres vpon whiche he sitteth." -Edit. 1535, P. EDWARD PEACOCK.

169.

Bottesford Manor, near Brigg.

With regard to the supposed connection between the northern lights and the weather, he found strong flaming exhibitions usually followed by storms. Magnetic disturbances were closely associated with the phenomena. He caused three thousand readings of magnetic instruments to be made, and these have still to be reduced; the principal results are, how- WE noticed lately as to be seen in the ever, as follows:-Magnetic storms are of British Museum a terra-cotta boot, on the extraordinary magnitude and frequency in that sole of which the hobnails were arranged to region. They stand in the closest relation to form an alpha at the beginning and an omega the auroral discharges, and the disturbances at the heel. Since then we have seen, in the are greater as the motions of the light-streams Castellani collection of the Museum, a small become more lively, and the prismatic colours gold boot with the nails very expressively become more intense. Quiet regular arches, forming the word Trov = "walk." There or ray-motions, have scarcely any action upon was thus apparently a good deal of scope for the needle. In all disturbances the declina- the ancient sutor without his looking ultra tion-needle moved towards the east. Further crepidam.

Academy.