convex, and some were not more than an inch long, with but one or two lines of writing. The cuneiform characters on most of them were singularly sharp and well-defined, but so minute in some instances as to be illegible without a magnifying glass.' Most curiously, glass lenses have been found among the ruins, which may have been used. for the purpose. Specimens have also been found of the very instruments which were employed to trace the cuneiform characters, and their form sufficiently accounts for the peculiar shape of these characters which was imitated by the engravers on stone. It is a little iron rod-(or style, as the ancients used to call such implements)—not sharp, but triangular at the end: ▼. By slightly pressing this end on the cake of soft moist clay held in the left hand no other shape of sign could be obtained than a wedge, ▼, the direction being determined by a turn of the wrist, presenting the instrument in different positions. When one side of the tablet was full, the other was to be filled. If it was small, it was sufficient to turn it over, continuing to hold the edges between the thumb and third finger of the left hand. But if the tablet was large and had to be laid on a table to be written on, the face that was finished would be pressed to the hard surface, and the clay being soft, the writing would be effaced. This was guarded by a contrivance as ingenious as it was simple. Empty places were left here and there in the lines, in which were stuck small pegs, like matches. On these the tablet was supported when turned over, and also while being baked in the oven.

On many of the tablets that have been preserved are to be seen little holes or dints, where the pegs have been stuck. Still, it should be mentioned that

these holes are not confined to the large tablets and not found on all large tablets. When the tablet was full, it was allowed to dry, then generally, but

not always, baked. Within the last few years several thousands unbaked tablets have been found in Babylonia; they crumbled into dust under the finders' fingers. It was then proposed to bake such of them as could at all bear handling. The experiment was successful, and numbers of valuable documents were thus preserved and transported to the great repository of the British Museum. The tablets are covered with writing on both sides and most accurately classed and numbered, when they form part of a series, in which case they are all of

the same shape and size. The poem discovered by George Smith is written. out on twelve tablets, each of which is a separate book or chapter of the whole. There is an astronomical work in over seventy tablets. The first of them begins with the words: "When the gods Anu and... .' These words are taken as the title of the entire series. Each tablet bears the notice: First, second, third tablet of "When the gods Anu and...." To guard against all chance of confusion, the last line of one tablet is repeated as the first line of the following one-a fashion which we still see in old books, where the last word or two at the bottom of a page is repeated at the top of the next.

13. The clay tablets of the ancient Chaldeans are distinguished from the Assyrian ones by a curious peculiarity: they are sometimes enclosed in a case.

of the same material, with exactly the same inscription and seals as on the inner tablet, even more carefully executed. It is evidently a sort of duplicate document, made in the prevision that the outer

one might be injured, when the inner record would remain. The row of figures across the tablet is impressed on it with a seal called from its shape a cylinder, which was rolled over the soft moist clay. These cylinders were generally of some valuable,

50.-CYLINDERS IN AGATE AND JASPER.

hard stone-jasper, amethyst, cornelian, onyx, agate, etc.,—and were used as signet rings were later and are still. They are found in great numbers, being from their hardness well-nigh indestructible. They were generally bored through, and through the hole. was passed either a string to wear them on, or a metal axis, to roll them more easily. There is a large and most valuable collection of seal cylinders at the British Museum. Their size ranges from a quarter of an inch to two inches or a little more. But cylinders were also made of baked clay and larger size, and then served a different purpose, that of historical documents. These are found in the foundations of palaces and temples, mostly in the four corners, in small niches or chambers, generally produced by leaving out one or more bricks. These tiny monuments range from a couple of inches to half a foot in height, seldom more; they are sometimes shaped like a prism with several faces (mostly six), sometimes like a barrel, and covered with that compact and minute writing which it often requires a magnifying glass to make out. Owing to their sheltered position, these singular records are generally very well preserved. Although their original destination is only to tell by whom and for what purpose the building has been erected, they frequently proceed to give a full though condensed account of the respective kings' reigns, so that, should the upper structure with its engraved annals be destroyed by the vicissitudes of war or in the course of natural decay, some memorial of their deeds should still be preserved--a prevision which, in several cases, has