of the more natural fallacies, which he sees exposed and corrected. He is ⚫ accustomed to a chain of deduction in which each link hangs from the preceding, yet without any insecurity in the whole; to an ascent, beginning from solid ground, in which each step, as soon as it is made, is a foundation for a further ascent, no less solid than the first self evident truths. Hence he learns continuity of attention, coherency of thought, and confidence in the power of human reason to arrive at the truth. These great advantages, resulting from the study of geometry, have justly made it a part of every good system of Liberal Education, from the time of the Greeks to our own."

This extract must form our apology to those who think lightly of mathematics as an exercise for the reasoning powers, for having treated so much at length upon the oldest, yet classical, forms of a favourite science. Pure geometry has ever been a leading feature in the writings of those mathematicians who have resided in the district which the Historic Society peculiarly claims as its own, and hence it may be presumed that a notice of the tendency of their scattered labours cannot be unacceptable in the pages of its transactions.

ON BABYLON;

AND ON THE DISCOVERY OF THE CUNEIFORM CHARACTERS,

AND THE MODE OF INTERPRETING THEM.

By Dr. Julius Oppert,

MEMBER OF THE FRENCH SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION TO BABYLON.

(READ 13TH MARCH, 1856.)

In attempting to convey my sentiments to a Learned Society in England, I must request the members to bear in mind that I express myself in a language that is not my own. I have long known, however, the extent of British hospitality towards strangers, as well during a long residence in the East as afterwards at their domestic hearths. This knowledge dissipates a great deal of the timidity and justified-hesitation with which I should make the attempt; and renders easier the task which I have set to myself, though it is still difficult.

I was appointed by the French Government to be a member of the scientific expedition to Babylonia. Our party was composed of M. Fresnel, the well known Arabic scholar, (who was brother to one of France's worthies, M. Augustine Fresnel,) of M. Thomas, a distinguished architect, eminent at the French Academy of Rome, and of myself. I shall have the honour to lay before you some of the results which we obtained, and afterwards to give some account of the state of cuneiform knowledge. I began the study of this subject in Europe, and afterwards continued it, with better materials and more success, in Babylon itself.

Besides the excavations which we had to undertake, we had been directed to survey the whole theatre of our explorations, and this department was undertaken by me. I spent nearly two years on the site of Babylon; and covered, with a netting of triangles, more than five hundred British square miles. I have been fortunate enough to find, in every instance, the true situation of Babylon corresponding with the territorial necessities; and in conformity also with the hints transmitted to us by the Holy Scriptures, by the Greek authors,-particularly Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, and

Curtius, by the Babylonian Talmud, and by the cuneiform inscriptions so far as their contents may be considered as satisfactorily known.

By the most simple means, I was successful in discovering the old Chaldean and Assyrian measures of length; and that discovery has been solemnly sanctioned by the illustrious Boekh of the Berlin Academy, who is justly regarded as one of the highest authorities on ancient metrology. Having observed the singular fact that all Babylonian square bricks are of the same size, and also that the whole of the stone slabs present a separate identity of magnitude, I measured 550 bricks and all the stone slabs I could find, with the utmost accuracy. I found that the side of the bricksquare was to the side of the stone square, as three to five. The former being 0.315 in length and the latter 0.525m, the side of the bricksquare was obviously the Babylonian foot, and that of the stone square a Babylonian cubit; and by a surprising but not fortuitous coincidence, the latter corresponds exactly with the Egyptian cubit. I found that the Chaldeans had a greater measure of 360 cubits, or 600 feet (ammatgagari in the inscriptions); and this greater itinerary length was the stadium of the Chaldeans. It was 189 French metres, 610 English feet, or only 14 feet longer than the Olympic stadium.

Both Nebuchadnezzar and Herodotus assign to the circuit of the walls of Babylon a length of 480 stadia; each side of the square must therefore have been 120 stadia, that is 22,680 metres or 14 miles. My trigonometrical surveys have, in the most satisfactory manner, proved the truth of my reckoning.

The great East India House Inscription of Nebuchadnezzar affords us another confirmation. The destroyer of the Salomonian temple says that his city covered a surface of 4000 makhargagar. The makhar is a square of 60 Chaldean feet in the side; the makhargagar 360 of those unities. The statement of Nebuchadnezzar is thus to be expressed by 5184 millions of square feet, what everybody may verify; and exactly the surface of the great square, the side of which was 72,000 feet.

Babylon filled thus a space of 514 kilometres, or almost 200 square miles. But this huge surface was not all inhabited; in the exterior enclosure, made by Nebuchadnezzar, were contained immense fields, which in the case of siege provided the city with corn and protected her from the horrors of famine. This exterior wall is said to have been destroyed