March 12, 1903] 



NA TURE 



435 



It will be seen that those responsible for the continued 

 well-being of the German State are as busily employed 

 in increasing the efficiency of their universities as they 

 are in adding to their navy. 



In Britain, there is no concern shown by our Govern- 

 ment and politicians in regard to the real sources of 

 national brain-power, towards which primary instruc- 

 tion, now well endowed, is but the first step. Private 

 endowment is still appealed to, though our present 

 unfortunate position comes from the fact that since the 

 necessary introduction of science into the curriculum of 

 the higher teaching, private endowment in the past has 

 not been, nor in the future will it be, able to supply a 

 tithe of what is really wanted. 



The State, however, while it allows the universities to 

 remain inefficient, as if it were a matter of indifference 

 whether we fail in brain-competition with foreign 

 countries or not, does really concede the principle of 

 State aid. Its present contribution to our universities 

 and colleges amounts to 155,600/. a year ; no capital 

 sum, however, is taken for buildings. 



This sum is made up of grants to : — 



£ 



(a) 4 universities in Scotland ... ... ... 72,000 



3 ,, „ England... ... 14,800 



1 ,, ,, Wales ... ... 4.000 



(/•) 13 colleges in England ... ... ... ... 26,000 



3 ,, ,, Wales ... ... 12,000 



3 ,, ,, Ireland — 



Grants in aid ... .. ... 4,800 



Consolidated Fund ; for Salaries of 

 Professors and Officers, and Allow- 

 ances for Scholars and I'rizes 21,000 



25,Soo 



1 college in Scotland ... ... ... ... 1,000 



The above tables show that the total sum given by the 

 British Government for the whole of the United Kingdom 

 is less now than the State endowment of one of the twenty- 

 two German universities was more than ten years ago. 



ASSYRIAN HISTORY. 



Annals of the Kings of Assyria : the Cuneiform Texts, 

 with Translations, Transliterations, &c, from the 

 original documents in the British Museum. Edited 

 by E. A. Wallis Budge, M.A., Litt.D., Keeper of the 

 Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, and L. W. King, 

 M.A., F.S.A., Assistant in the Department of Egypt- 

 ian and Assyrian Antiquities. Vol. i. Pp. lxxv + 391. 

 (Printed by order of the Trustees, 1902.) Price il. 



IT is an interesting fact that practically all the 

 materials which exist for the reconstruction of the 

 ancient history of Mesopotamia are to be found within 

 the walls of the British Museum. Neither at Paris, 

 nor even at Constantinople, far less at Berlin, does 

 there exist any collection of ancient Babylonian and 

 Assyrian records which can for a moment be compared 

 to that of the British Museum. The researches of 

 British archaeologists have resulted in the transfer to 

 London of the whole of the royal library of the palace 

 of King Ashurbanipal (668-626 B.C.) at Nineveh; here 

 the thousands of inscribed clay tablets of which it was 

 composed have found their permanent home. It is then 

 to London that every student must turn if he wishes to 

 NO. 1741, VOL. 67] 



learn the story of ancient Mesopotamia. Here are pre- 

 served almost all the ancient monuments and records 

 of those mighty monarchs of Assyria and Babylon, 

 who lighten the background of the Biblical story with 

 the splendour of their continual goings forth to war, 

 and the rumour of whose glory makes so deep an im- 

 pression on the history of Herodotus. The Trustees 

 of the national Museum have now commenced to pub- 

 lish a national and official edition of all the most im- 

 portant of the Assyrian historical records preserved 

 under their care. This edition will contain the original 

 cuneiform texts, with their transliteration, a transla- 

 tion, and extremely useful footnotes and annotations 

 below. 



As yet only the first volume has appeared ; if we are 

 to judge of those that will follow from the first we may 

 indeed congratulate the Trustees on their important 

 publication — one of the most important, in fact, of 

 their publications for many years past. To say that 

 Dr. Budge, the Keeper of the Assyrian collections, 

 and his able assistant, Mr. L. W. King (already known 

 as an Assyrian historian since he edited " The Life 

 and Letters of King Hammurabi of Babylon," and 

 incidentally demolished the legend that a mention of 

 Chedorlaomer, Tidal, and Arioch had been found on 

 Assyrian tablets), have done their work well is unneces- 

 sary; one does not question the results arrived at by 

 the first — almost the only — authorities on the subject. 

 We can only wonder at the perspicacity of those 

 pioneers of cuneiform research, Rawlinson, Hincks, 

 Fox Talbot, George Smith (all Englishmen), and the 

 rest, who made it possible for Dr. Budge and Mi". King 

 to translate for us with such accuracy and verve the 

 strange arrow-headed characters which march in pro- 

 cession along the top of each page of their monumental 

 publication. Verve the translations undoubtedly have, 

 and this energy of expression exists also in the originals 

 whenever a triumphant war is being described. 



It is in this respect that an Assyrian inscription differs 

 greatly from an Egyptian ; the Egyptian is a much 

 calmer and quieter recital of events in poetical form, de- 

 pending for much of its effect on artificial antitheses, 

 alliterations, even on puns, and so losing energy and 

 truth; the Assyrian is the paean of a dervish, nothing' 

 less. Let us hear Tiglath-pileser (1100 B.C.) dancing 

 and singing his war-song over the bodies of his victims 



(P- 49) ■— 



" With the fury of my valour a second time against 

 the land of Kummukhi I marched. All their cities I 

 conquered ; their spoil and their goods and their posses- 

 sions I carried off; their cities I burned with fire, I 

 laid waste, I destroyed. And the rest of their host, who 

 in face of my terrible weapons were afraid and feared 

 my mighty onslaught in battle, in order to save their 

 lives, sought the strong heights of the mountains, a 

 difficult region. To the heights of the lofty hills and 

 to the tops of the steep mountains, where it was not 

 possible for man to tread, after them I went up. War, 

 and fighting, and battle they waged against me, but 

 I defeated them, and the dead bodies of their warriors 

 on the tops of the mountains like the Storm-god I cast 

 down, and their blood in the valleys and on the high 

 places of the mountains I caused to flow. Their spoil, 

 their goods, and their possessions from the strong 

 heights of the mountain I brought down. The land of 

 Kummukhi in its length and breadth I conquered, and 



