Sir R. Ker Porter's Travels in 
tionably by some great convulsion of na- 
tore, or some even moro extraordinary 
destructive efforts of aman..,..‘The mate- 
rials of the masonry are furnace-burnt 
bricks, of a much thinner fabrick than) 
most of those which are found. east of 
the river, on the spot.to which some 
writers confine the remains of Babylon. 
i bad not explored that ground when I 
first yisited the Birs Nimrood ; but [had 
seen many of the Babylonian bricks at 
Hillah, forming the court and walls of 
the house I inhabited; and which had 
been brought from the mounds. of the 
aheicnt great city, to. assist in erecting 
the modern miscrable town. The ce- 
ment which holds the bricks together, 
that compose. the ruin on the summit of 
the Birs, is so hard, that my most vio- 
lent attempts could not separate them. 
Hence I failed in discovering whether 
these bore any inscriptive stamps on 
their surface; marks invariably found, 
where they exist at all, on the side of the 
bricks which faces downwards. Why 
they were so placed, we cannot guess; 
but. so it is, in all the primitive remains 
of ancient Babylonia; but in the more 
modern structures of Bagdad, Hillab, 
and other places erected out of her 
spoils, these inscribed bricks are seen 
facing in all directions. While on the 
summit of the Birs, I examined many of 
the fine brick fragments which lay near 
the foot of the piece of standing wall, to 
see whether bitumen had been used any 
where in their adhesion, but I could not 
trace the smallest bit. The cement 
throughout was lime, spread in a very 
thin layer, not thicker than a quarter of 
an inch, between each brick and its 
neighbour; and, thin as this cement was 
Jaid, it contained a spreading of straw 
through the midst of it. The standing 
piece of ruin is perforated in ranges of 
square openings; through which - the 
light and air have free passage. ‘The 
latter admission may have been deemed 
necessary to preserve the interior of the 
building from the abiding influence of 
damp. For, that this tower-like relic.is 
a remains of what formerly coustituted 
a part of some interior division of the 
great pile itself, I shall presently at- 
tempt to shew. — At the foot of this piece 
of wall, on its southern and western 
sides, besides the minor fragments. E 
haye just mentioned as having inspected 
in search. of bitumen, lay several im- 
mense uushapen masses. of similar fine 
brick-work ; some entirely changed toa 
state of the hardest vitrification, and 
others culy partially so. In many might 
MontuLy Mac. No. 370, 
Georgia, Persia, Armenia, &c. 601 
be traced the gradual effects of the con- 
suming power,.which had produced so 
remarkable an appearance; exhibiting 
parts, burnt to that variegated dark hue, 
seen in the vitrified matter lying about in 
glass manufactories ;. while. through the 
whole of these awful testimonies of the 
fire, (whatever fire it was!) which, 
doubtless, hurled them from their original 
elevation, the regular Jines of the cement 
are visible, and so hardened in common 
with the bricks, that when the masses 
are struck they ring like glass. On ex- 
amining the base of the standing wall, 
contiguous to these huge transmuted 
substances, it is found totally free from 
any similar changes, in short, quite in its 
original state ; hence I draw the conclu- 
sion, that the consuming power acted 
frem above, and that the scattered ruin 
fell from some higher point than the 
summitof the present standing fragment. 
The heat of the fire which prodaced 
such amazing effects, must have burnt 
with the force of the strongest furnace ; 
and from the general appearance of the 
cleft in the wall, and these vitrified 
masses, I should be inclined to attribute 
the catastrophe to lightning from. hea- 
ven. Ruins, by the explosion of any 
combustible matter, would have exhi- 
bited very different appearances: 
On the face of the pile itself, a little 
way down its northern brow, a consi- 
derable space of similar fine brick ma- 
sonry is visible. The bricks bere mea- 
sure three inches and a quarter in thick- 
ness, by twelve inches in length, They 
are a pale red, and cemented, like the 
upper mural fragment, with lime... In 
this wall, also, are. square) apertures, 
running deep into the interiorof the 
pile ; and, notwithstanding that the ma- 
sonry is greatly injured) in places, yet, 
from its general smoothness and well- 
finished work, I cannot doubt its having 
formed a part of the grand casing. of 
fine brick, which every observation. on 
this gigantic: ruin, leads: us 10 suppose 
encrusted the whole structure in gradual 
stages... Lower down, and more to the 
eastward, we have another and larger 
vestige of, this sort of wall, presenting 
itself inan angular form ; one of its faces 
fronting the cast.» Here the work is 
altogether om a-vaster scale; the bricks 
being, four inches, and! three quarters 
thick, by twelve.and three quarters in 
length >and. are joiued by a bed of mor- 
tar amore thap -am-ineh deep. The 
bricks, though: decidedly furnace-burnt, 
we of a much softer texture than those 
described aboye, and the cement is of a 
4G coarser 
