100 



skill and knowledge was necessary to a common 

 farmer ! I imagined that any one could sow 

 what seed he chose, and then reap and gather 

 the produce ;but as to feeding the earth in re- 

 turn for the nourishment drawn from it, I cannot 

 say that ever entered my head. So, you see, 

 that I have learned something to-day some- 

 thing real, Mamma. 



Qth.~ My uncle has been very much interested 

 in the account which Ker Porter gives of Ba- 

 bylon, in his second volume, and has been so 

 kind as to read to us the description of what 

 this great city was, when at the summit of its 

 glory ; and what it is now, and has been for 

 so many ages. 



According to Herodotus, the walls of this 

 prodigious city were sixty miles in length, and 

 formed a square of fifteen miles each way, in 

 which gardens, lawns, and groves were included. 

 They were built of large bricks, cemented to- 

 gether with bitumen, and, he says, were 350 feet 

 high, and 87 feet thick, and protected on the out- 

 side by a vast ditch, lined with the same mate- 

 rials. There were 25 gates of solid brass on each 

 side, and from every gate a street of 150 feet 

 wide crossed the city to the opposite gate. Ac- 

 cording to his description, the temples, palaces, 

 and hanging gardens were equally wonderful. 

 A branch of the Euphrates flowed through the 



