84 NOTICES OF THE MEETINGS [May 30, 
hardness, colour, specific gravity, composition, and effect on light as 
the true ruby, the cymophane, and other mineral bodies, were prepared, 
and were in fact identical with them. Chromates were made, the 
emerald and corundum crystallized, the peridot formed, and many 
combinations as yet unknown to mineralogists produced. Some of 
the crystals of spinel of recent production which M. Ebelman ex- 
hibited had facets the eighth of an inch or more on the sides. [Vide 
Annales de Chimie, 1848, tome xxil. p. 211 ] Mak: 
In the Library were exhibited :— 
Cunningham’s Patent Mode of Reefing Topsails [by H. Cunning- 
ham, Esq.]. 
Gage’s Cataplasmes Galvaniques [by Dr. Bence Jones}. 
Specimens of Porphyritic Granite, from Fowey, Cornwall, worked 
by Mr. J. H. Meredith [by Mr. J. H. Meredith]. 
Stag-Candelabrum [by Messrs. Hunt and Roskell], &c. &c. 
WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 
Friday, May 30. 
Tue Duxr or NorvHUMBERLAND, President in the Chair. 
Coronet H. C. Raw inson. 
A Few Words on Babylon and Nineveh. 
REFERRING to the interest which is now attached to the Assyrian 
Inscriptions, owing to the recent discoveries at Nineveh and Babylon, 
Colonel Rawlinson proposed to explain what Cuneiform writing was, 
how it had come to be deciphered, and what had been learnt from 
it. 
Cuneiform characters did not belong to any particular lan- 
guage, or any particular alphabet, or even to any particular system 
of writing. The natives of Western Asia in antiquity made use 
generally of letters, formed for the convenience of sculpture with 
the arrow-head and wedge, instead of the curves and lines which 
have since become the standard elements of writing. Among 
such nations the Assyrians occupied the first place; then came 
the people of Susiana and Elymais and of Babylonia, and Chal- 
dea; and the series was terminated by the Armenians, the Scy- 
thians and the Persians. An alphabet consisting of nearly 400 
signs, which had been perhaps originally a complete system of 
picture-writing, and in which to the latest period of its existencethe 
