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discoveries now made known, may be the means of promoting 
still further investigation, and preserve from destruction much 
which is being sacrificed through Turkish apathy and native 
ignorance. Mr. Smith remarks that “The Turkish officials, 
while always ready to oppose researches and prevent the discovery 
or removal of monuments, never hinder the natives from destroy- 
ing antiquities.”* 
It may not be known to all our members, that the son ofa 
member of this Club has published an Assyrian grammar, and 
on the Creation Tablets and the institution of the Sabbath. The Text of this 
Tablet was presented to the Society by Mr. G. Smith before his departure for 
Mesopotamia. Another contains the Chaldean account of the Tower of Babel 
which is a Translation of a Fragment discovered by Mr. G. Smith at Nineveh. 
© In a communication to the Atheneum, 12th Feb., 1876, Mr. George 
Smith says:—‘‘I have discovered a Babylonian Text, giving a remarkable 
account of the Temple of Belus at Babylon,” and then he gives the particulars 
of its structure. ‘‘ It was constructed in stages, and the whole height 300 feet, 
equal to the breadth of the base, the four sides of which faced the four 
cardinal points. The only ruin now existing at or near Babylon which can be 
supposed to represent the Temple of Belus, is the mound and enclosure of 
Babil, the ruins corresponding fairly with the account of these structures in 
the Greek authors and in the inscription. The Mound of Babil, which is 
identified by the best authorities with the Temple of Belus, consists now of the 
lower stage of the Tower and the building round it. We can only conjecture 
that the magnificent superstructure was removed by Alexander the Great in 
his operations for clearing the site and rebuilding the Temple, a work which 
he did not live to accomplish.” This Mr. Smith regards as the Tower of 
Babel mentioned in Genesis, as the dimensions of this Tower as given in the 
newly decyphered Tablet, are twice that of the Borsippa Tower, or that of 
Birs Nimrod, which he had supposed at first to be the Tower mentioned in 
Genesis. “This magnificent Temple rising more than 300 feet above the 
plain (twice the height of Birs Nimrod) and towering far above every other 
building in the country, overlooked the capital Babylon, and commanded a 
view of the cities and temples, river and canal, cultivated fields and gardens 
unequalled in the world.” 
