GEOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 395 



the Tuariks. This is a powerful tribe who inhabit oases in the Sahara, 

 or Great Desert, and are noted for their inhospitality to travellers. Dr. 

 Earth, one of the German gentlemen accompanying, mentions a vast 

 tract of fertile land through which he passed in the region of the Great 

 Sahara, and which has remained entirely unknown to travellers and 

 geographers. He describes it as being of considerable extent, beauti- 

 fully wooded, with a number of small rivers passing through it, and 

 susceptible of the highest degree of cultivation. It is inhabited only 

 by animals, among which he mentions the elephant, buffalo, lion, 

 giraffe, &c. 



At the latest date, Messrs. Earth and Overweg, the German gentle- 

 men, had reached Kuka, Central Africa, and Dr. Earth had proceeded 

 onward to the kingdom of Adamowa, a country never before visited by 

 a white man. Dr. Overweg was engaged in the exploration of Lake 

 Tsad. The boat brought from England, and which for twelve months, 

 with immense trouble, had been carried in pieces on camels across the 

 desert of Sahara, had been put together and launched upon the lake. 

 The travellers in this vicinity had everywhere been treated with great 

 kindness by the natives. The dimensions of the lake were found by 

 Dr. Overweg to be much smaller than those given by Denham, being 

 about 60 miles from east to west, whereas in Denham 's map it is 

 more than double. These apparent discrepancies, however, may find 

 their explanation in the remarkable nature of the lake ; it being an 

 immense body of water, which is greatly augmented in the rainy sea- 

 son, but in the season of drought evaporates so much that it seems at 

 times to dry up entirely. 



CURIOUS RELICS FROM BABYLON. 



WITHIN the last few years, Col. Rawlison and Mr. Layard have 

 added to the antiquarian treasures of the British Museum certain curi- 

 ous bowls made of terra cotta, and found buried some twenty feet deep 

 amidst the ruins of Babylon. These bowls are upwards of fifteen in 

 number, and generally six inches broad and thrdP or four in depth. 

 Most of them have inscriptions inside, commencing at the bottom and 

 extending in a spiral line towards the left, till, after some revolutions, 

 ranging from five to ten in number, they close at the brim. The characters 

 and language of the inscriptions have hitherto baffled all our antiqua- 

 rians. We are informed, however, that very recently both have been 

 satisfactorily explained by Mr. Thomas Ellis, who is engaged in the 

 Oriental Manuscript of the British Museum. The language is Chaldee, 

 and the characters somewhat resemble the Phoenician or square 

 Chaldean. At the same time, there are found certain words and 

 terms peculiar to the Jews only ; and thence Mr. Ellis infers that the 

 inscriptions must either have been written by the Jews during their 

 captivity in Babylon, or by a remnant of that people who never 

 returned from Assyria. London Athenccum. 



