Auckland. Institute. 547 
So also of ancient history, when, if not written for the purpose of advocating one or 
another scheme of political government—democratic, ——— or monarchic—it is 
biassed by the patriotic feelings of the writer. Man any, too, of the passages of these 
authors have been palpably corrupted either by = haa of transcribers or by wilfu 
alterations. Years of patient labour have been bestowed by learned men in endeavouring 
to elucidate the readings of perplexing or contradictory pce with by no means 
satisfactory results. 
But sixty years have passed since the younger Niebuhr, not content with having 
read nearly every written history, resolved to verify, as far as possible, the accounts of 
the historiographers by a minute and critical examination of the ruins of buildings 
mentioned, a survey of sites described in their works. He more especially devoted him- 
self to Roman sources, and speedily came to the come that much, if not all, the so- 
called Roman history, prior to the first Punic War, was by no means trustworthy. Many 
scholars, more or less convinced by Niebuhr's facts and arguments, treated Greek history 
in a similar manner, the result being a rude shock to what had become an established 
faith. After doubt came attempts at reconstruction; a more thorough research of all the 
most world-renowned localities was organized; Dr. Young’s and Champallion’s attempts to 
decipher Egyptian hieroglyphies, and partial success, led to many collaborateurs follow- 
ing in their tracks; Egyptian annals going back for thirty centuries before the Christian 
era have been compiled, and though much may be doubted, these facts remain—con- 
ferring more authenticity than the often retranscribed manuscripts of early classic writers 
—that in many instances the inscriptions on stone or writing; on papyrus are of the 
same antiquity as the events related, and have come down to us unaltered by succeeding 
generations. But stone even has not always proved a permanent medium for conveying 
records to posterity; in the Assyrian excavations of Rawlinson, Layard, Smith, and 
others the earlier inscriptions or carvings on alabaster or stone have often been partially 
effaced. In some cases the stone dado round rooms has been reversed, and the same 
material re-used to pourtray the triumphs or solemnities of a later dynasty. These 
ancients, however, had discovered a material as durable even as stone, and easily worked, 
for recording events or myths. Slabs of clay had characters incised upon them, were 
then baked, and thus defied that great destroyer—fire. Thousands of broken tiles of 
this kind, ruled into columns, and numbered on the back or bottom, have been exhumed 
at Nineveh ; the fractures having been caused, partly by the fall of the building contain- 
ing this library, partly by disintegration through moisture. The date of the manufacture 
of these tablets has been fixed as commencing with the reign of Assur, about 1500 
years B.C., and concluding with the reign of Assurhanipal, about 670 years B.C., say 230 
years later than the Arundelian marbles assign as the age of Homer and Hesiod. Many 
of these later Assyrian tiles are not the originals, but copies of Chaldean or Babylonian 
tiles of far greater antiquity, mentioning only kings reigning at this latter city at least 
years antecedently. It appears that the Assyrian monarchs besides committing to 
these clay tablets the annals of their own respective reigns, caused copies to be made of 
the tablets of other states for the royal library. This has been confirmed by the discovery 
on still more ancient sites of pieces of tablets of earlier work narrating the same story. 
Incredible labour has been bestowed upon putting together corresponding fragments of 
these many thousand broken tablets (I believe no perfect one has been found yet), some 
have been partially completed, the cuneiform inscriptions interpreted, and amongst 
valuable discoveries, most wonderful corroborations of the Mosaic description of the 
deluge and rescue in the ark distinctly made out. 
