21 6 
74. There is one fact connected with the destruction of 
Babylon and the marvellous fulfilment of prophecy which struck 
me more than anything else, which fact seems never to have 
been noticed by any traveller ; and that is, the non-existence 
in the several modern buildings in the neighbourhood of 
Babylon of any sign of stone which had been dug up from 
its ancient ruins, because it seems that in digging for old 
materials the Arabs only used the bricks for building pur- 
poses, but always burnt the stone thus discovered for lime, 
which fact wonderfully fulfils the divine words of Jeremiah, 
namely, “ And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner 
nor a stone for foundation, but thou shalt be destroyed for 
ever, saith the Lord/'* In another place, the same prophet 
foretells her doom in the following majestic words, “ How is 
the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and broken ? 
How is Babylon become a desolation among the nations.”! And 
although no less than three mighty conquerors endeavoured 
to restore its magnificence after its first destruction, yet they 
laboured in vain. The last of these, Alexander the Great, met 
with his death even before he could remove the rubbish from 
the Temple of Belus, where it is said he employed 10,000 men 
for the purpose. 
75. At this mound, where Alexander the Great is said to 
have tried to rebuild the Temple of Belus, I made some excava- 
tions, which proved successful. As far as I remember, no one 
before me found any trace of ancient building in that locality, 
but I was fortunate enough to find, after one day’s labour, 
remains of a hall connected with other chambers, wherein I 
found records of Nebuchadnezzar with broken pillars, capitals, 
and fragments of enamelled bricks, and part of a cedar beam, 
which are now in the British Museum. As it was not quite 
safe to carry on the excavations there without my personal 
superintendence, I was obliged, on leaving the country, to 
bring the work to a close in that place ; but I left a few work- 
men with two trustworthy overseers to continue the research 
in Babylon proper. Since my return to this country, however, 
I deemed it advisable to recommend the resumption of the 
work at Birs Nimroud on a smaller scale, as we have a trust- 
worthy Arab overseer who could superintend the operations 
there without much danger. 
76. The ruins of the tower variously named Borsippa, Temple 
of Belus, Birs Nimroud, and tower of Babel, rising as it were 
a high mountain out of the sea, struck me with greater 
* Jeremiah li. 26. 
f Jeremiah 1. 23. 
