and how it is found by pure science of astronomy that a phenomenon of the exact nature required, excepting only one particular, actually then took place. It only remains for astronomers to determine the exact time of central conjunction of sun and moon on the 11th of January in that year. For my own part, I have the greatest faith in the accuracy of the deductions to be drawn from the words of the sacred record, with regard to the time and form of the eclipse; and I venture to anticipate that astronomy will again be indebted to history for a test of her calculations, accepting from history the exact position of the shadow during the eclipse of B.C. 689, as on a recent occasion her calculations have been modified with a view to the historical position of the shadow during the eclipse witnessed by Agathocles in the year B.C. 310. Meanwhile, until the decisive authority of this exalted science shall be pronounced to the contrary, we cannot fail to recognize the striking connection between the event and the historical description; and to place the end of the third year of Sennacherib and the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth year of Hezekiah in the year B.C. 689.

ART. V.-Topography of Nineveh, illustrative of the Maps of the chief cities of Assyria; and the general Geography of the country intermediate between the Tigris and the Upper Zab. By FELIX JONES, Commander Indian Navy, and Surveyor in Mesopotamia.

[Read 2nd July, 1853.]

WITHIN the last decade of years, the museums of France and England have been enriched by numerous monuments of Assyrian art, that clearly show the soil from which they were obtained was peopled by a race who, to its warlike habits, added many of the refinements of civilized life. The researches of Botta and Layard-so far as lapidary tablets are capable of conveying the economy of a nation-have familiarised us in some measure with the public rites and ceremonies of the Assyrians, as well as given an insight into their more domestic concerns; and the pens of these travellers have further elucidated the subject in a manner of which the praise of the public is guarantee to the ability displayed, while the monuments themselves, as patents of their energy, remain in the capitals of Europe, until, in the course of time, they share in the fate of their Assyrian predecessors. Profoundly indifferent, however, to such an event, our savans are in the mean time labouring to unravel the mystic characters engraved on the records so lately revealed to us; and such is the progress made, that we may shortly expect to be as cognizant of the deeds of the "stouthearted king and the glory of his high looks," as we are conversant with the celebrities of Greece or Rome. The only desideratum wanting, it appears, to complete the picture of Assyria, is a faithful sketch of her aspect in desolation, when she is "empty, and void, and waste; when flocks lie down in the midst of her; and when her rivers are opened, and her palace is dissolved." This we have endeavoured to supply in the three maps of the vestiges of Assyria, made from actual survey of the spot. Topography, however, is a dry subject, and we enter upon it with diffidence and reluctance.

The third sheet of the vestiges of Assyria is intended to convey a general idea of the region where flourished the principal cities of the Ninevite kings. On it, the relative positions of Nimrúd and Khorsabad will be readily seen, with those of Nineveh and other remains more recently recognised as belonging to the same period. We may infer that in its local features the region cannot have materially changed since the era in which Nimrod, Asshur, or Ninus, migrated

1 Isaiah x. 12.

2 Nahum ii. 6, 10; Zephaniah ii. 14.

from the plains of Babylonia1 to found a dynasty and a kingdom beyond the Zab. The great mountain ranges of the Taurus to the north and Zagros to the north-east and east, in this region sink almost imperceptibly into plains traversed at certain intervals only by slight ridges which, having a direction parallel to the sides of the greater chains, just rise in lines above the soil or crop forth only in undulations of varying height, from W.N.W. to E.S.E. Eastward of the modern Mosul these ridges are mostly depressed and broken, offering outlets to the pent-up mountain streams which unite to form the Upper Záb, as well as to give passage to other tributaries, principally winter torrents and minor rivulets, that issue from the Jebel Maklúb, of which the Khósr-sú or Khorsabád stream is the chief. During winter rains this becomes an impassable barrier, while at other periods it is fordable in most places. It falls into the Tigris, in latitude 36° 21′ N., just opposite the modern Mosul; and the Záb debouches in the same way, in the parallel of 35° 59′ N., enclosing between its broad shingly bed and the Khósr stream, a highly arable plain, diversified, here and there only, by gentle undulations and slopes. This plain, a somewhat irregular parallelogram in shape, and in extent twenty-five miles by fifteen, contains most of the Assyrian sites we are yet acquainted with. It has a gradual declination westward from the basis of the incipient mountain range of the Jebel Maklúb and hill of Áyn-es-safra, which are the most prominent natural features in the Nineveh landscape. These, skirted on the N.E. and E. by the Gomel or Gházir-su, as by a ditch, defended the tract sufficiently on these sides, while the broad and rapid currents of the Tigris and the Záb protected it on the W., S., and S.E. The Khósr rivulet on the N. and N.W., insignificant as it naturally is, was rendered too a strong defensive barrier from invasion on these points, by artificial works, which we shall speak more fully of in a subsequent page.

It was thus an admirably selected position. Undulation and vale, ridge and plain, alike capable of tillage throughout the tract, offered

1 We use these names as the generally recognized appellations of the founders of the Assyrian monarchy. The Targums of Onkelos and Jerusalem supply, however, other readings for some of the proper names found in our version of Genesis x.

2 The Hamrín, Kara Husseyn, and Kara Chokh ridges, are curious instances of these gradations from mountain to plain, leaving narrow but extended steppes of very rich land intermediate between them; we shall notice them more in detail in a future paper. The first bounds Mesopotamia to the N.E., the latter terminates in the Sinjar group, dipping below the country west of Arbél, where the Tigris and the Záb course impetuously over its depressions. The undulations are

a sufficiency of pasture at most seasons. Crossed too as it is by the beds of many watercourses, and generously visited with dews and winter rains, it was then, doubtless, as now, a most fertile region. In the spring and autumn, when covered with verdure and wild flowers, it must have offered such teeming plenty with little labour, that man, naturally desirous of ease, could not fail to appreciate its bounties. The climate too, if unchanged since that period, was favorable to his feelings in the primitive state of his existence, and the summer heats, tempered by breezes from the adjacent mountains, were doubtless deemed cool in comparison with the torrid blasts he had experienced in the plains of Shinar; while the rigour of winter in the rugged country beyond him was equally unheeded and unfelt in the genial atmosphere of the steppes where he had determined on fixing his future abode.

Here then we may presume Nimrod, Asshur,1 or Ninus, first established himself, and planned the erection of those cities and edifices, the monuments of which, after thirty-five centuries of time, have been abstracted piecemeal by the stranger, and borne off as the trophies of a nation then unheard-of and void. We shall notice these cities more in detail when the first and second sheets of the vestiges of Assyria come under observation. In our remarks upon them we shall endeavour to maintain the metropolis in the position where it is evident it was first designed, notwithstanding some pains have been taken to transfer it to other sites; and, at the same time, shall attempt to do away with the prevailing idea as to its vast magnitude, which, founded on the gross description of Ctesias, quoted by Diodorus Siculus, has led many intelligent men astray in search of the stupendous walls wherewith that author begirts Nineveh. Even the mountain range of the Jebel Maklúb, pronounced as "calcareous mountains" by a modern writer in one page, is made on the weakest authority "the entire work of man" in another; and, as such, is sought to be identified with the imaginary ample walls of the ancient city. This range rises perhaps to 2000 feet above the level of the Tigris, and, as we have before remarked, is the chief natural feature in the Nineveh

2

This name would seem to imply that of the country, not that of the founder of the Assyrian monarchy, if the readings of the Chaldee Targums are to be adopted; and certainly the sense of the passage in Genesis x. is not done violence to, but on the contrary, is maintained by these interpretations.

2 Ctesias' fragments would appear to be loose in every respect. Plutarch, Aulus Gellius, Aristotle, and Joseph Scaliger, it would seem, estimate his character for veracity at a very low scale.

landscape; we sought in vain for vestiges of such stupendous structures as Ctesias ascribes to Nineveh, and which indeed could not have existed on a soil such as this without leaving traces of their presence to a considerable extent.1 The proof of this is in the remnants before us of minor structures of the period.

Independent of its connection with scriptural events, and with the themes which excited the inspiration of the prophets, the tract represented on Sheet III. has high claims to the consideration of the scholar and antiquarian. Here are the mines which connect the present civilization with the history of the past; for all that we know of the early world, and all future knowledge that we are likely to derive, will doubtless be traced to the fortuitous occurrences recently enacted on this soil. Nineveh and its celebrities, as mere names, were just indeed discernible in the wake of subsequent historical events, when the spades of Botta and Layard revealed them distinctly to our view, and this too at an appropriate time, when enlightened minds were prepared for their study by long application to other records in a cognate character, though in a different tongue. To us, indeed, this concurrence of physical and mental energy appears more than a mere coincidence, and what may yet be disclosed to us from the interpretation of the records still entombed in the 350 square miles of the district, we are at a loss even to conjecture; for while fresh tablets are being exposed as the work of excavation proceeds, Cuneiform studies have acquired a stability which cannot but lead to success. Its claim to our regard, however, is not solely confined to the interesting discoveries but lately made by our travellers; the scene before us was the theatre of other renowned actions long subsequent to the struggles between the Assyrian and the Mede. Even when their names were as a proverb of the past, and England's fame lay buried in the future, this region between the Tigris and the Záb shone as the stage on which sovereign actors contended for the empire of the world. Darins here resigned his sceptre to the Macedonian; and Persia, after acquiring a second ascendancy, again fell before the victorious legions of Heraclius at the fatal battle of Nineveh. Mirwán, the last khálif of the line of Ommíyeh, relinquished too his sovereignty and his life on the same field, and from this reverse a new dynasty arose, that of the 'Abbassíyín, whose power, emanating from Baghdád, governed the world for the long space of 520 years. The banks of the Kházir, the Layard's testimony is conclusive of the exaggeration of the ancient writers. See Nineveh and its Remains, vol. ii. chap. 2, p. 275; and Niebuhr, in his Lectures, discards altogether the evidence of Ctesias, when considering the historical value