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NATURE 
[May 13, 1915 

dependent on temperature, and requires three 
weeks or upwards in our climate. Months of 
warm weather are therefore required to produce 
any multitude of flies from the few surviving in 
the winter. Why the epidemic should exhibit this 
dependence is not explained, unless on the assump- 
tion that the fly population determines the number 
cases of diarrhcea. 
Without losing sight of the various other ways 
in which the specific infective agents of cholera, 
typhoid, epidemic diarrhcea, and dysenteries may 
be and are transported from the excreta of one 
individual to the mouths of others, the prima 
facie case against the house-fly is complete. 
Further, in the infantile diarrhoea, the 
fly-carriage hypothesis offers a satisfactory inter- 
pretation of the extraordinary dependence of the 
epidemic upon the accumulated effect of tempera- 
ture, and affords a ready explanation of the 
spread of the infection of cholera, typhoid, and 
diarrhoea to neighbouring persons who have no 
contact with the patient, in those cases in which 
contamination of a water or food supply may be 
excluded. 
The direct proof of the extent of the danger 
due to flies is lacking, but the hypothesis has 
pragmatic yalue. It not only interprets facts 
otherwise awkwardly explained, but measures 
based upon it have been attended with beneficial 
results; in other words, it works. 
of 
case of 

THE RESURRECTION OF BABYLON. 
HOUGH searcely a book to attract the general 
reader, Dr. Koldewey’s account of the Ger- 
man excavations on the mounds which have for 
ages entombed the remains of Babylon the Great, 
is a work of considerable importance for all who 
are interested in the archeology of the Old Testa- 
ment. This, as perhaps is not generally known 
in England, is still a growing science; and the 
worst thing that can be said of the German Ex- 
pedition to Babylonia is that, after so many years 
of patient and persistent spadework on one of the 
most promising sites in the world, it has not yet 
succeeded in unearthing anything of higher his- 
torical or religious value than is recorded in the 
volume before. us. Nothing extraordinary has 
hitherto been found; no great literary monument, 
no document of supreme religious moment, no- 
thing that lends decisive help towards the settle- 
ment of any one of the unsolved problems of 
history or chronology. How much more fortunate 
in this respect were the pioneering labours of 
Layard and George Smith and Botta at Nineveh, 
of Rassam at Sippara, of De Sarzec at Tellé, of 
De Morgan and Scheil at Susa! 
It is well for us that the Assyrian kings were 
so deeply interested in the literary monuments of 
Babylon. Had we > depended for our knowledge 
of these on the remains of the Great City itself, 
we should (until the recent American discoveries 
at Nippur) have been left without any indication 
1 “*The Excavations at Babylon.” By R. Koldewey. Translated bv 
Agnes S. Johns. Pp. xix+335. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., rgrq.) 
Price 2ts. net. 
NO. 2376, VOL. 95] 
of the existence of the Babylonian legends of 
Creation and the Deluge; to say nothing of the 
many relics of the arts and sciences of Babylon 
which the library of Assurbanipal preserved 
for us. 
The pathos of the position of the German ex- 
plorers was that the site had been looted so often 
previously to their systematic investizations that 
scarcely anything of first-rate importance was left 
for the latest adventurers. The temples and 
palaces of Nebuchadrezzar’s capital were probably 
swept bare of most of their portable treasures 
at a comparatively early period; and the ravages 
of people in search of building material, and the 
petty pilferings of Arabs and other stray visitors, 
had doubtless robbed the ruins of much that would 
have been priceless in the eyes of modern ex- 
plorers. Even the beautiful enamelled bricks, 
ro 

Fic. 1.—Eramelled wall length cf the Ishtar Gate. 
at Babylon.” 
From ‘* Lhe Excavations 
with their strange mythological figures, are not 
altogether a novelty. Older specimens of the 
same kind of mural decoration were long ago 
reproduced by Perrot and Chipiez from Sargon’s 
palace at Khorsabad (‘‘ History of Art in Chaldea 
and Assyria,” II., plate xv.; see also plates xili— 
xiv. Eng. Trans., London, 1884). But it is 
highly satisfactory to find such splendid examples 
| as those of the Ishtar Gate still existing, in situ, 
| and in such an excellent state of preservation 
| (Fig. 1). 
_ Whether anything of supreme value awaits dis- 
interment at lower levels remains to be seen. 
Slabs of diorite or other hard stone, like the 
| famous stela of Hammurabi, or the similarly 
| written inscription of Nebuchadrezzar, which is 
(or was) one of the treasures of the library of the 

