Nov. 2-t. 18S2.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



415 



founders, librarians, and tlie language, writing, and subjects 

 of their contents, embodying the most recent acquisitions 

 to the history of the subject ; but carefully adhering to the 

 ascertained facts, and avoiding inferences, however attrac- 

 tive, that may still be matters of dispute. 



It cannot yet be determined with certainty where was 

 the seat of the first public library of the Accadian inha- 

 bitants of Babylonia ; and even if it were, that would 

 not inform us whether the contents of its clay tablets or 

 books were written there for the first time, or copied from 

 texts brouglit on papyri by the Accadians when they came 

 into the country. This, however, is a question which will 

 receive much incidental illustration when discussing the 

 original writing materials of this people. 



From what Berosus* tells us with regard to Sippara, or 

 Pantibiblon (the town of books), the very city, one of 

 whose libraries has just lieen brought to light, which, if 

 we may judge from the first half of its contents that has 

 arrived, was devoted to documents relating to mercantile 

 transactions almost exclusively, having been the spot 

 where Sisuthrus buried his literary treasures before the 

 Deluge, it may be inferred that this was certainly one of 

 the first towns that collected a library. It was from the 

 site of this city, now the mound of Aboo-Habba, that Mr. 

 Rassam sent the ancient engraved stone which he found, 

 together with two cylinders of Xabonidus in an earthen- 

 ware coffer. This stone is dated in the reign of Nabupa- 

 liddina, that is, in the ninth century B.C., and tells us 

 that the place of its deposit is the famous temple of the 

 sun-god E Barra, speaks of its destruction by invaders 

 called the Sutu, mentions that Simas Sign commenced its 

 restoration, that the work was carried on by another 

 monarch, but it remained for NaViupaliddina to finally 

 destroy the Sutu and complete the temple. This King 

 Simas Sign is about the fortieth name in the list of early 

 sovereigns after the Deluge discovered by Mr. Pinches, and 

 the second monarch E Ulbargarmu occurs in the ancient 

 list of kings, a fragment of which was found by Mr. 

 Smith, as separated liv two reigns only from Simas Sign. 



It is possible that the mound at Mugheir enshrines the 

 oldest library of all, for here are the remains of the city of 

 Ur (probably the Biblical Ur of the Chaldees). From this 

 spot came the earliest known royal brick inscription, as 

 follows : — "Urukh, King of Ur, who Bit Xannur built"! 

 Although there are several texts from Mugheir, such as 

 that of Dungi, son of Urukh, ;{: yet, unless by means of 

 copies made for later libraries in Assyria, we cannot be 

 said to know much of its library. Strange to say, how- 

 ever, the British Museum possesses the signet cylinder of 

 one of the librarians of Ur, who is the earliest known person 

 holding such an office, named t»w " *"T •~*'"| (Amilanu), 

 who lived in the reign of >->-y ^Y >^—^ ^TT ""^TT (Emuq- 

 sin;. King of Babylonia. Its inscription is given thus by 

 Smith : — " Emuq-sin, the powerful hero, the King of Ur, 

 King of the four regions ; Amil Anu, the tablet-keeper, 

 son of Gantu his servant" An inscription of Sin Iddinna, 

 from Ur, relating to the excavation of a canal, and another 

 of a monarch named Nurvul, and also a contract tablet of 

 his reign, are given by Smith, § who also found a mutilated 



• A priest of the Temple of Bel, at Babylon, who wrote in 

 ('■reek a history of Babylonia and Assyria ilerived from the archives 

 written upon tablets jircserved in libraries of Babylonia. — See 

 Cory "Antient Frapments," and Lenormnnt " Essai de Commen- 

 tairo des Fragments Cosmogoniques de Bi'rose." 



t "Bit Xannur." The house of Xannur (the Moon God). 



I Smith's "Assyrian Discoveries," 232. Some scholars pro- 

 nounce the characters of Urukh's name differently as Lik Bagas. 



§ Early history of Babylonia. 



memorial tablet in the mound of Kouyunjik, which had 

 probably been carried away from Ur by the Assyrians in 

 some victorious campaign. It refers to " Rim-agu, the 

 powerful hero, governor of Ur, king of Larsa, king of 

 Sumir and Accad," a sovereign who we know, from 

 Hammurabi's inscriptions, was defeated by him. It was 

 Hammurabi who transferred the capital from Ur to 

 Babylon, and, no doubt from that time its library was 

 surpassed by that at the latter city. 



A Member of the Society of 



Biblical Arch.eology. 



ANTI-CORSET PHILOSOPHY 

 HISTORY. 



AND 



THE letters of the Rational Dress Reformers (I should 

 put the hyphen in one place and they in the other) 

 provoke me to trouble you once more. I thought Dr. 

 Chadwick's sensible and moderate answer to that highly 

 imaginative epistle, signed F. W. Harberton, of Sept 29, 

 sufficient; but Mr. Leigh's, of Nov. 10, shows again that 

 these regenerators of mankind equally despise history and 

 personal experience and the results of daily observation ; 

 for every one now can see for himself the truth of what 

 several other doctors wrote a dozen years ago, that in spite 

 of all theory, "tight lacers are generally active and 

 healthy people, " and the liest riders and walkers, and are 

 evidently not the least entitled to the glory of martyrs, as 

 is commonly assumed, and as the victims of tight boots 

 and enormously high heels cannot conceal that they arc ; 

 which are very ugly besides. 



You remarked on my letter of July 21 that you knew 

 some one who had tried tightlacing, as recommended in 

 several letters in the Emilifli Merhiniir for indigestion, A-c, 

 and had found it caused a sensation of fulness in the hand. 

 Certainly he ought not to persist in it then, nor should any 

 one beyond the point at which internal sensations give 

 warning to stop. One poison is no rule for another in 

 such matters. The letters in the EmjJi.-'lt Mechanic, and a 

 little book full of others, selected from a now extinct 

 periodical which I met with about ten years ago, called 

 Figure Training, and others subsequently in the same 

 magazine amply prove that. The great majority of the 

 writers — I may say all who wrote from their own expe- 

 rience — said they had found the tightest lacing they could 

 bear, especially in stays quite stifl" in front, both 

 pleasant and beneficial, and among them was a surgeon. 

 Some, however, find it expedient to remain under con- 

 traction only a few hours in the morning, and the 

 surgeon discarded his stays when taking strong exer- 

 cise, which seems natural ; but others lace tightest for 

 riding, and ladies mostly in the evening, and some enjoy 

 and recommend confinement in stays all night also — an 

 old practice wliich used to be enforced in some families 

 and schools. !Men generally prefer belts, but not a few 

 wrote that they found regular long and stiff stays much 

 nicer and better for their health. Two or three said they 

 could stand and walk much longer in them than without, 

 and that their health relapsed whenever they gave it up. 

 Many had begun it under some kind of compulsion, but 

 had soon come to like it, even after severe treatment at 

 first As I said before, the philosophers got much the 

 worst of it in those discussions. 



My pliilosophy about it is that all those statements of 

 personal experience, with their variations in detail, are 

 worth infinitely more for practical purposes than all the 

 talk about lungs and diaphragms and capacity of chests 



