Ixxvlii REPORT — 1875. 



work of later times. I believe Sir H. Eawlinson has traced the canal to which 

 I allude throughout the greater part of its course, from Hit on the Euphrates 

 to the Persian Gulf, a distance of between four and five hundred miles*. It 

 is a proof of the estimation in which such works were held in Babylonia and 

 Assyria, that, among the titles of the god Vul were those of " Lord of Canals " 

 and " The Establisher of Irrigation Works "f. 



The springs of knowledge which had flowed so long in Babylonia and 

 Assyria were dried up at an early period. With the faU of Babylon and 

 destruction of Nineveh the settled population of the fertile plains around thera 

 disappeared ; and that which was desert before man led the waters over it 

 became desert again, affording a wide field for, and one well worthy of, the 

 labours of engineers to come. 



Such was not the case with Egypt. Long after the period of its greatest 

 prosperity was reached, it remained the fountain head from whence know- 

 ledge flowed to Greece and Eomc. The philosophers of Greece and those 

 who, like Archimedes, were possessed of the best mechanical knowledge of 

 the time, repaired to Egj^pt to study and there obtained much of their 

 knowledge. 



Greatly as Greece and Eome were indebted to Egypt, it will probably bo 

 found, as the inscribed tablets met with in the mounds of Assj-ria and Chaldaja 

 are deciphered, that the later civilizations owe, if not more, at least as much 

 to those countries as to Egj-pt. This is the opinion of Mr. Smith, who, in 

 his work describing his recent interesting discoveries in the East, says that 

 the classical nations " borrowed far more from the valley of the Euphrates 

 than that of the Nile "+. 



In the science of astronomy, which in these days is making such marvel- 

 lous discoveries, Chaldrea was undoubtedly preeminent. Among the many 

 relics of these ancient peoples which Mr. Smith has recently brought to this 

 country is a portion of a metal astrolabe from the palace of Sennacherib, and 

 a tablet on which is recorded the division of the heavens according- to the 

 four seasons, and the rule for regulating the intercalary month of the year. 

 Not only did the Chalda^ans map out the heavens and arrano-e the stars but 

 they traced the motion of the planets, and observed the appearance of comets- 

 they fixed the signs of the zodiac, and they studied the sun and moon and the 

 periods of eclipses §. 



But to return to that branch of knowledge to which I wish more particu- 

 larly to draw your attention, as it grew and spread from East to West, from 

 Asia over Europe. Of aU nations of Europe, the Greeks were most inti- 

 mately connected with the civilization of the East. A maritime people by 

 the nature of the land they lived in, colonization followed as a matter of 



* Rawlinson's ' Herodotua,' vol. i. p. 420, 2nd edit. 



t Ibid. p. 498. 



I Smitli's (G.) 'Assyrian Discoveries,' p. 451, 2nd edit. § Ibid. 



