852 The American Naturalist. . [October, 
versity of Pennsylvania,” Series A, Cuneiform Texts, Vol I, Part 1, 
“ Old Babylonian Inscriptions, chiefly from Nippur.] H. V. Hilprecht.” 
Upon the priest’s statement that the fragments were those of a votive 
cylinder, Professor Hilprecht makes the following comment: 
“There are not many of these votive cylinders. I had seen, all told, 
up to that evening, not more than two. They very much resemble the 
so-called seal cylinders, but usually have no pictorial representation on 
them, and the inscription is not reversed, not being intended for use in 
sealing, but is written as it is read.’ 
Then there follows a transliteration of the inscription in the Sumer- 
ian language. Mrs. Hilprecht’s statement is as follows: 
was awakened from sleep by a sigh, immediately thereafter heard 
a spring from the bed, and at the same moment saw Professor Hilprecht 
hurrying into hisstudy. Thence came the cry, ‘ It isso, it isso!’ Grasp- 
ing the situation, I followed him and satisfied ny in the midnight 
hour as to the outcome of his most ape pened 
Signed, “J. C. Hilprecht.” 
A few weeks after the occurrence of this curious dream, there ap- 
peared a difficulty which Professor Hilprecht was not able to explain. 
“According to the memoranda in our possession, the fragments were of 
different colors, and, therefore, could have scarcely belonged to the same 
object. The original fragments were in Constantinople, and it was with 
no little interest that I [Mr. Newbold] awaited Prof. Hilprecht’s return 
from the trip which he made thither in the summer of 1893. I trans- 
late again his own account of what he then ascertained. 
“In August, 1893, I was sent by the Committee on the Babylonian 
Expedition to Constantinople, to catalogue and study the objects got 
from Nippur, and preserved there in the Imperial Museum. It was to 
me a matter of the greatest interest to see for myself the objects which, 
according to my dream, belonged together, in order to satisfy myself 
that they had both originally been parts of the same votive cylinder. 
Halil Bey, the director of the museum, to whom I told my dream, and 
of whom I asked permission to see the objects, was so interested in the 
matter that he at once opened all the cases of the Babylonian section, 
and requested me to search. Father Scheil, an Assyriologist from 
Paris, who had examined and arranged the articles excavated by 
us, before me, had not recognized the fact that these fragments belonged 
together, and consequently I found one fragment in one case and the 
other in a case far away fromit. As soon as I found the fragments and 
put them together, the truth of the dream was demonstrated ad oculos— 
they had, in fact, once belonged to one and the same votive cylinder. 
