/ 
Talbot, Oppert, and Rawlinsoii arrived at those results which 
will be described in a future paper. Some assistance was 
also derived from inscriptions in Assyrian and Phmnician cha¬ 
racters on bronze weights and clay tablets. 
May 2nd. —Rev. J. Kenrick contributed a continuation 
of his former paper On the Cuneiform character, treat¬ 
ing of the discovery and interpretation of the Obelisk of 
Nemroud.” 
The destruction of Nineveh by the Medes and Babylonians, 
606 B. c., was so complete that its site was unknown. Lucian, 
who lived about the middle of the second century, in one of 
his dialogues introduces Charon, who has begged a holiday 
from Pluto, that he may come above ground, and see wLat 
this upper world is like. Mercury undertakes to be his guide ; 
they ascend Mount Parnassus and seat themselves, one on each 
of its two summits. Among other things Charon inquires 
about the sites of celebrated cities : Where is that Troy from 
which for ten years together such crowds of ghosts came, that 
I had no time to dry iny boat, much less to put her into dock ? 
And where is the Ninus (Nineveh) of Sardanapalus ? ” 
Ninus,” replies Mercury, O Ferryman, has perished 
already, and no trace of it remains. A^ou cannot say where it 
once stood.”^ And such remained the case till very recent 
times. To have fixed the site of Nineveh, to have ascertained 
the topography of its buildings, to have exhumed and inter¬ 
preted its monuments, is one of the most glorious achieve¬ 
ments of science in the nineteenth century. In this work 
France led the wav. The discoveries at Khorsabad, made by 
M. Botta, consul at Mosul, wnre soon followed by those of our 
countryman, Mr. Layard, at Nemroud. To him chiefly we 
are indebted for the antiquities which fill the Assyrian rooms 
at the British Museum. Of these one of the most remarkable 
is the obelisk of black marble, a cast of which stands in the 
vestibule of our own Museum. The decipherment and inter¬ 
pretation of its inscription was much more difficult than that 
of the Persepolitan inscription of which I spoke in my former 
^ Lucian Necyomant. Charon, sive Contemplantes, 
