AARON and the Priesthood, 42 Action, necessity of determinate prin- Adhesion and Cohesion, 55 Advice of a philosopher, 200 Algebraic sigus, + and, origin of, 15 powers of defence and offence on the feeding of, 142 Animal life, wonders of, 70 Art of gilding, 96 Arts and sciences, progress of, 246 III., 121-IV., 201 Attraction, on Capillary, 84, 156 Babylon, ruins of ancient, 2 Bacon, Lord, selections from, 136, Black Rat, account of the, 216 Blair, selections from, 143, 184, 247, 248 Blind School, Philadelphia, 187 and Spirit, dialogue between, 159 Bray, Mrs., selections from, 88 161, 249 Brief history of Navigation, Buffalo, Tradition of the, 160 104 of Florence. 177 Centre of gravity, 188, 220 Childhood, lines on, 64 of Israel, murmurings of, 12 domestic manners of the, 153 16 Civet cat, the, 189 Civilized life, 239 Clarendon, selection from, 157 Colton, selection from, 136 Conscience, value of a good, 232 of Consolations of Religion, 11 Regalia, 4-IV., Coronation Vest- Cumberland, selection from, 200 Dahlia, cultivation of the, 111 Dartmoor, description of, 113 Defence, powers of, possessed by ani- Definition of Prose and Poetry, 30 Earth, its appearance to the moon, 120 62 Evils of drunkenness, 141 Facts in Comparative Anatomy, III., Flower garden, beauties of the, 147 France, oyster fisheries in, 133 Francis, selection from, 173 necessity of care in the Gecko, foot of the, 240 Gillman, Mrs., extract from, 187 God, omnipotence and omnipresence God, lines on the bounty of, 88 of the wealth and power of, 101 Hale, Sir M., selections from, 141, 191 Harvest-time, hymn in, 200 Hazel, the, 116 Health, lines on, 144 Hope, Collins's ode to, extract from, Horns of deer, 93 Hour-glass, philosophy of the, 158 Idria, quicksilver mines of, 155 Inorganic substances, uses of some of, Insects, on the transformation of, 150 Intemperance, lines on, 119 Jewish master, story of a, 150 Judicial combats, 170 Kentucky, racoon hunt in, 53 La Fontaine, selection from, 147 Lavater, selections from, 221, 239 Light of the marine animals, 237 Macculloch, extracts from, 22, 27, 119, 136, 142, 152, 191, 237 uses of some of the inorganic sub- evidence of the ignorance of, 239 Mental diseases, treatment of, 45 Monuments of antiquity, illustrations Moon, phases of the, 125 Moth, dwelling of a species of, 88 Myxine, glutinous hag, or borer, 184 National morality, its dependence on II., 7-111, 55-IV., 84-V., 99— Natural phenomena, wonders of. 70 Nothing in nature lost, 240 Offence, powers of, possessed by ani- Officers of state, duties of, 44 Organs of digestion in the caterpillar, Painting, definition of, 28 manufacture of writing, 117 Patrick, Bishop, selections from, 150, Poison fangs in serpents, 61 Comparative sizes of the planets, Primrose, the common, 244 Printer's ink, what composed of, 175 Profile machine, description of, 192 Prose and poetry, definitions of, 30 pavements in, 219 Queen Elizabeth, her progresses and Quicksilver mines of Idria, 135 Racoon, natural history of, 53 Ram, description of the hydraulic, 211 Reason, advantages of, 8 VI., 156-VII., 179-VIII., 188- Regalia, account of the, 4 Reid, selection from, 220 Resignation under difficulties, 70 the baggage of virtue, 200 Part 1X., 73-Palaces, 74-The Sacrifice, universality of, 148 San Lorenzo, Florence, church of, 138 Say, J. B., anecdote by, 110 Sea, British sailor's praise of the, 183 Sensibility of women, 159 Simpson, extract from, 54 Sin, deceitfulness of the pleasures of, 239 Sistine chapel, Rome, account of, 75 Smith, selection from, 3 Smith, Adam, selection from, 19 Struve, selection from, 212 " Tabernacle, building of the, 107 Thoughts of the moment, value of, 136 Tintern Abbey, Monmouthshire, 65 on, 183 Transformation of insects typical of the human being, 150 Truffle, description of the, 29 the foundation of knowledge, Tongue of the woodpecker, 28 Foot of the Gecko, under side of, 240 Gecko's foot, under side of the, 240 Glutinous hag-fish, 184 Gold-leaf beating, figures illustrative Gondola, Venetian, 250 Grand butler and carver at a royal Gray Wethers, Dartmoor, 113 Hag fish, the glutinous, 184 leaves, catkins and fruit of, 116 Hillah, present town of, 1 Horns of red and fallow deer, 93 Illustrations, microscopic, of the pro- Kasr, or palace, ruins of Babylon, re- Kilmallock, town of, 105 Latitude and longitude, diagram illus- Manioc flour, preparation of, 57 Microscopic animals found in stagnant water, 136 Microscopic Illustrations, 16 Misericordia, brother of the, 184 Monkeys gathering fruit, 12 Monument to J. P. Rottler, 25 probable appearance of the phases of the, 125 Mosaic, old, 168 أ Washington, selections from, 15 Weights of Europe, table of, 69 -, moral courage of, 215 World, love of, 157, Wye and Monmouthshire, II 17– Young Chemist, XII., 91 Sago-palm, fruit, &c, of, 24 Seal, great, of Henry the First, 5 Serpents, poiscu fangs of, 61 Ship, Anglo-Saxon and Norman, 165 Slating, diagram illustrative of, 31 108 Spring-tides, new and full moon, 207 Venetian gondola, 250 War-boat, early English, 166 Wilton Castle, 49 Woodpecker, tongue and skull of the 28 Woolwich, Rotunda or Repository 81, 233 Wye, New Weir on the, 193 of the accomplished Surgeon and Naturalist of the Expedition, Mr. Ainsworth*, (to whom we are also indebted for the sketch, taken on the spot by Lieutenant Fitzjames, R.N., from which our engraving is made,) we are enabled to lay before our readers some curious and novel facts concerning the city of cities," Babylon the Great. THE Euphrates Expedition, undertaken for the pur- But the usefulness resulting from such an expedi- Having been kindly granted access to the Notes The modern town of Hillah is situated upon the river Euphrates, where once stood a considerable suburb of Babylon. Its present population, which may average from six to seven thousand souls, consists chiefly of Arabs, who have their own Sheik, but the Mutsellim, or governor of the place, is under the pacha of Baghdad, and resides in a fortress within the There are bazaars and markets on both sides town. of the river. The shopkeepers are chiefly Armenians, A most important fact connected Turks, and Jews. with these traders is, that Manchester and Glasgow goods that were taken out by the Expedition as samples, were eagerly bought by them, at a profit Mr. Ainsworth's work, Researches in Babylonia, Assyria, and' Chaldea, is now published, and the Author has departed on a journey to the Syrian Christians, under the auspices of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and the Royal Geographical Society of London. 386 to the sellers of 100 per cent*. There is much trade carried on in the town both by camels from the interior, and by boats laden with rice, dates, tobacco, and other articles most in demand among the desert tribes. In connexion with this town, and the immense extent and magnificence usually ascribed to the city of Babylon, Mr. Ainsworth makes the following observations: The great question which has occupied historians in connexion with Babylon is, whether the account given of its size and magnificence by the ancient profane writers, in some cases supposed to have been eye-witnesses of its glory and splendour, are not exaggerated. There has been the customary abuse of the standard of measurement amongst classical authors, and the same difficulty of reconciliation left to the moderns +. But in this question, a great elementary principle has been hitherto entirely lost sight of. The cities of the earliest races of mankind were not, as in modern times, vast and crowded congregations of houses, built side by side in compact and extensive masses, but each dwelling had its garden, pasture, and tillage-lands surrounding it, the whole being enclosed by a wall. This fact at once reduces the wonder often evinced at the vast space occupied by many ancient cities of the East. In the centre of the vast enclosure, or in some conspicuous part, were the residences of the authorities, the chief of whom was already called king; here also was the temple of their god, or the house of their captives, as at Babylon. There are abundant evidences that this was the fact in the two great cities of antiquity,Babylon and Nineveh; of the former it is stated by Curtius, that the intervals which separated the houses were sown and cultivated, to provide subsistence in case of siege. A consideration of these circumstances does not, therefore, allow of any comparison between the population of a city of Assyria or Babylonia with the population of a modern city of equal extent. This is an element in all the pompous records of the past grandeur of Babel, which must not be lost sight of. And even in reference to its boasted magnificence, the poetical character of Eastern writings, and the remote periods to which they refer, must not be forgotten in the overwhelming interest of the subject. The greatest cities of Europe," it has been said, "give but a faint idea of the grandeur which all historians unanimously ascribe to the famous city of Babylon;" and this opinion has been echoed by every lover of hoary antiquity. Then came the fulfilment of its predicted destruction, and the glory of God appears to be enhanced in the eyes of man, by the magnitude of the object against which his anger was directed; but a knowledge of the real state and circumstances of the great Eastern mart of iniquity, would probably show that mercy predominated over punishment. Some modern authorities have thought that they *It would be curious if, in the progress of commerce and civilization, the neighbourhood of Babylon should again become the scene of princely mercantile traffic; it is described in the Revelations as having once been (xviii. 12, 13), "The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and, scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner of vessels of ivory, and all manner of vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, &c." + Herodotus gives the extent of the walls of Babylon at 120 stades on each side, or 480 stades in circumference; Diodorus 360 stades in .circumference; Clitarchus, who accompanied Alexander, 365; Curtius states it at 368; and Strabo at 385 stades. The general approximation of these measurements would lead us to suppose that the same stade was used by the different reporters, and if this was the Greek Itinerary stade, we may estimate the circumference of the great city at twenty-five British miles, | could trace on the plains of Hillah the extent of ancient Babylon; but their data are frequently few, and in reality deceptive. The lines drawn on maps are often only used to divide distant mounds of ruin. Accumulations of pottery and brickwork are met with occasionally over a great tract, but the connexion supposed between these and the corn-fields and gardens, within the common precincts of a wall, is gratuitous in the extreme. Imagine London and Paris to be levelled, and the inhabitant of some future city to visit their ruins, as those of then remote antiquity; if in the one instance Sèvres, Mont Rouge, and Vincennes, or in the other Greenwich, Stratford-le-Bow, Tottenham, Highgate, Hammersmith, Richmond, and Clapham, be taken in as boundaries, or identified respectively as the ruins of those cities gain in the eyes of futurity! Paris and London, what a prodigious extent would those cities gain in the eyes of futurity! Like other great cities in the East, the great Babel was, in the lapse of time, known by different names, and, ultimately, subdivided into various parts. been separated from the mother-city, if indeed it The first quarter of Babylon that appears to have was not originally distinct, was that on the west The word "Birs," as applied to this mound or ruin, side of the river, and contains the Birs Nimrood. cannot be satisfactorily explained in Arabic, as a derivative of that language; and it would appear, that all attempts to deduce it from the Hebrew or Chaldaic tongues have failed, as they are founded on a change of the radical letters. It was from Birs, or Bursif, that the produce of the Birsean looms-the cloth of Birs-derived its name. The almost only remnant of Borsippa, probably the temple of a national worship performed in high places, one of which belonged to each Babylonian city, and to each quarter of Babylon itself, still preserves its ancient name. Birs Nimrood has been pile of Babel, but it will appear much more probable generally looked upon as the remnant of the great to have belonged to the city of Birs, Bursif, or Borsippa, and one of the quarters of the Babylon of Herodotus. Marudi, in his Universal History, mentions Babil, the earth, so named from the name proper to one the capital of Aferadun, and one of the " climates" of of its towns. This town is situated on both banks of the canal, derived from the Frat in the province of Irak, one hour's journey from the city called Jisr Babil and the canal of Al Birs. its name, and to have received that of Nil. The The quarter of Babel itself appears to have changed mounds of Babel and the Mujaleba are nearly surrounded by two canals which bear that name in the the Frat as flowing to the city of Nil, and giving off Abulfeda described the main stream of present day. the canal of Nil, after which it is called the Nahr Sirat. D'Anville also notices a town called Nilus, without having a definite idea of its position. The square superficies of the mound of Babel is 49,000 feet; its elevation at the south-east corner, 64 feet. To the south of it is the Mujaleba, having a square superficies of 120,000 feet, and a height of only 28; beyond this again, the Amram ebn Ali, having an area of 104,000 feet, and an elevation of 23 feet. The Mujaleba has been read as if it were Makalbid, from Kalba, "the overturned, or overthrown," whereas a much nearer affinity exists to Mujaleba, plural of Jalib, the "home of the captives," and not improbably the residence of the Israelites who re mained in Babylon. This version is favoured by the name of Heroot and Maroot also given to the mound by the natives, from a tradition that near the foot of the ruin there is an invisible pit, where D'Herbelot relates that the rebellious people were hung with their heels upward, "until the day of judgment." The Kasr, or palace, is a mound of about 700 yards in length and breadth. Its moulded bricks, ornamented with inscriptions, and its glazed and coloured tiles, added to the sculptures that have been found there, speak of its importance, and have led to its being generally looked upon as the eastern and the largest of the palaces of the Babylonian monarch, renowned for its sloping gardens. Between the Kasr and the Amram there is every probability the Euphrates once flowed, where the subaquatic tunnel of Semiramis may have existed, and where quays lined the banks at the time Alexander was carried over during his last illness. The Amram ebn Ali (so called from a son of Ali,) has been more generally, and with probably a greater degree of plausibility, identified with the western palace. It is surrounded by ridges or mounds of ramparts which were the defence of this large space, and of all the establishments it contained. The fourth quarter of Babel is marked in its central space by the mound of Al Heimar or Hámir, an isolated eminence once having a superficies of 16,000 feet, and an elevation of 44 feet, with a ruin on the summit eight feet high. Its modern name is derivable from the Arabic root hamará, "to be, or become red," denoting the red mass or ruin on the summit: Alhambra, one of the four wards of Grenada, was also so called from the red colour of the materials of its buildings. DEPENDANCE OF MAN UPON HIS CREATOR. FOR the continuance of life a thousand provisions are made. If the vital actions of a man's frame were directed by his will, they are necessarily so minute and complicated, that they would immediately fall into confusion. He cannot draw a breath without the exercise of sensibilities as well ordered as those of the eye or ear. A tracery of nervous cords unites many organs in sympathy, of which, if one filament were broken, pain, and spasm, and suffocation, would ensue. The action of his heart, and the circulation of his blood, and all the vital functions, are governed through means and by laws which are not dependant on his will, and to which the powers of his mind are altogether inadequate. For, had they been under the influence of his will, a doubt, a moment's pause of irresolution, a forgetfulness of a single action at its appointed time, would have terminated his existence Now when man sees that his vital operations could not be directed by reason, that they are constant, and far too important to be exposed to all the changes incident to his mind, and that they are given up to the direction of other sources of motion than the will, he acquires a full sense of his dependance. If man be fretful and wayward, and subject to inordinate passion, we perceive the benevolent design in withdrawing the vital motions from the influence of such capricious sources of action, so that they may neither be disturbed like his moral actions, nor lost in a moment of despair. When man thus perceives that in respect to all these vital operations he is more helpless than the infant, and that his boasted reason can neither give them order nor protection, is not his insensibility to the Giver of these secret endowments worse than ingratitude? In a rational creature, ignorance of his condition becomes a species of ingratitude: it dulls his sense of benefits, and hardens him into a temper of mind with which it is impossible to reason, and from which no improvement can be expected.-BELL. WHAT different ideas are formed in different nations concerning the beauty of the human shape and countenance ! A fair complexion is a shocking deformity on the coast of Guinea; thick lips and a flat nose are a beauty. In some nations, long ears that hang down upon the shoulders, are the objects of universal admiration. In China, if a lady's foot is so large as to be fit to walk upon, she is regarded as a monster of ugliness. Some of the savage nations in North America tie four boards round the heads of their children, and thus squeeze them, while the bones are tender and gristly, into a form that is almost perfeetly square. Europeans are astonished at the absurd barbarity of this practice, to which some missionaries have imputed the singular stupidity of those nations among whom it prevails; but when they condemn those savages, they do not reflect that the ladies in England had, till within these very few years, been endeavouring, for near a century past, to squeeze the beautiful roundness of their natural shapes into a square form of the same kind.-SMITH. MANKIND have a great aversion to intellectual labour, but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.-JOHNSON. WHAT IS HOME? THAT is not home, where day by day There are who strangely love to roam, Investing all the heart holds dear; And home without thee cannot be.-CONDer. |