260 
buffaloes, he proceeds: ‘ He slaughtered amtsi with his arrows. 
The amtsi that survived he captured and brought to his city 
Assur.’ In another inscription he speaks of killing thirty 
amtsi; 2 preposition and noun follow, the signification of which 
are doubtful. I think the root is aw, yashab, to sit or dwell ; 
but whether the king means to say that he killed them from an 
ambush, or that they were at rest when he attacked them, I can- 
not say; nor indeed am I very certain that the root is what I 
have stated. In the same passage where these thirty amtsi 
are mentioned, he speaks of killing 257 of what I have trans- 
lated buffaloes, with arrows, while driving in his chariot, and 
also 360 bulls with a weapon, which I suspect to have been the 
boomerang. From this it appears that the amtsi were, compa- 
ratively speaking, rare. 
“T feel that an apology is due to the Academy for offering 
a paper on a subject on which I possess such imperfect know- 
ledge. Still, however, it may prove interesting tosome; and 
it may elicit observations from naturalists that may throw light 
on what I leave in obscurity.” 
Sir William R. Hamilton read a continuation of his Paper 
on some new geometrical applications of quaternions. 
