Assyrian History.

much fuller and differing in several points from this account of Berosus , and apparently approaching closely the account in the Book of Genesis . The account of the Creation commences with a description of chaosbefore the formation of the universe .

, In order to show the style of this composition he . quoted the opening lines of the first tablet of the history of the Creation : — 1 , When on high the heavens were not raised ; 2 , and beneath on the earth a p lant had not grown ; 3 , and the deeps

had not yet produced their seeds ; 4 , the chaos Tiamat ( or the ocean ) was the begetter of the whole of them ; 5 , their waters first were established ; but 6 , a tree had not grown up , a flower had not unfolded ; 7 , then the gods had not founded anything ; 8 , a plant had not sprung up

and order did not exist : 9 , there were made the gods only ; 10 , and the demigods they caused to exist ; 11 , and to grow * *; ] 3 , and the upper expanse and the lower expanse existed ; 13 , aud a course of clays and long time passed . The account of the Creation goes on to describe in great detail

the subsequent formation of the heavens and the earth , winding up with the creation of man . The philosophy of the Babylonians and Assyrians in this respect was evidently similar to that of the writer of Genesis , for they describe man as a perfect

being at his creation and as falling from that hi gh estate . According to the Book of Genesis , man was planted iu the Garden of Eden ; and Sir Henry Rawlinson , to whom we owe so much in Assyrian decipherment , had long ago identified Eden with the Kar-Dunias or Gan-Dnnias of the

inscriptions . Kar-Dunias is one of the names of Babylonia , perhaps belonging properly to some particular part of the country , and it is said to be watered by four rivers , like Eden in Genesis . To Sir Henry Rawlinson we are also indebted for the discovery of another point in the

belief of the Bab ylonians- —viz ., the opinion that there were two distinct races of mankind , the dark race and the fair race . The grounds of this division of the human famil y are unknown , but the dark race appears to correspond to the Adamites or

sons of Adam in Genesis , while the failrace agrees with " sons of God " in the same book . At the era of the earliest contemporary monuments , long subsequent to the Semitic Conquest , the Euphrates and

Tigris " Valleys , the lecturer said , are found broken up into some seven or eight kingdoms , viz ., Sumir , near the Persian Gulf ; Akkad , the region round Babylon ; Elam , east of Akkad ; Goiin , north of Elam ; . Assuron the Tigrisnorth of Akkad ; and

, , two or three other states whose positions are obscure . A mig hty monarch now arose at Ur ( Mugheir ) , probably the birthp lace of Abram . His name is read with some hesitation Urukh . His conquests stretched from the modern Mugheir , then

called Ur , to Babylon , and some of his successors subdued and colonised Assyria . Scientifically constructed buildings , gem carving , metal work in gold , silver , bronze , and iron , bas-reliefs and sculptures in the round , embroidered dresses and personal

ornaments , as well as elegant furniture , the the art of writing , mathematical science , including the knowledge of square , and cube roots , an elaborate system of weights and measures , works on astronomy , geography , mythology , and history , regular laws , ri g hts of property , judges , and other

legal officers , a state religion and orders of priesthood , extensive commerce and shipbuilding , artificial irrigation and scientific tillage of the ground—all these were telling evidence of civilisation of those early times . After this a period of decay and ossification set inwhich lasted down to

, the reign of Sargon I ., King of Akkad , about B . C 1600 . The curious history of his preservation as an infant , in an ark of rushes , coated with bitumen , and set afloat on the Euphrates by his mother , was a striking parallel to the similar account

concerning Moses , in Exodus . Sargon ' s victories over Elam , and as far as the Mediterranean , no less than his mi ghty buildings , shed a lustre over the falling Babylonian Empire , which soon after his death succumbed to Hammurabia Syrian

, or Arab conqueror . Up to this point the text of the lecture had been Babylonia , of which Assyria was originally a colony ; its relation to the mother country seemed to BIr . George Smith something like that of Prussia to Germany . Its colonisation

took place about B . C . 2000 , and its governors were at first call patesis , or viceroys of the god Assur . After the overthrow of the early Babylonian power by Aniniurabi , the Assyrian rulers moved more freely , and gradually enlarged their dominion until , from being a strip of