310 
BIRS NIMROOD 
my pursuits, by remaining in bis company, I left him to his 
repose, or his own pious ablutions; and descended the pile, to 
regularly commence my observations. 
The present shape and dimensions of this huge mass of 
building, when seen from the East, appears like an oblong hill, 
sweeping irregularly upwards towards its western aspect, in a 
broad pyramidal form. It measures at the base 694 yards, 
(3082 feet;) at least, as nearly that, as the dilapidated state of 
the outline there would allow me to ascertain. On looking 
towards its eastern face *, it extends in width 153 yards (459 
feet,) and presents two stages of hill; the first shewing an ele¬ 
vation of about 60 feet, cloven in the middle into a deep ravine, 
and intersected in all directions by furrows, channelled there by 
the descending rains of succeeding ages. The summit of this 
first stage, stretches in rather a flattened sweep to the base of 
the second ascent, which springs out of the first in a steep and 
abrupt conical form, terminated at the top by a solitary standing 
fragment of brick-work, like the ruin of a tower. From the 
foundation of the whole pile, to the base of this piece of ruin, 
measures about 200 feet; and from the bottom of the ruin to its 
shattered top, are 35 feet. On the western side, the entire mass 
rises at once from the plain in one stupendous, though irregular 
pyramidal hill, broken, in the slopes of its sweeping acclivities, by 
the devastations of time and rougher destruction, f The south¬ 
ern and northern fronts J are particularly abrupt towards the 
point of the brick ruin ; but in both these views we have a profile 
of the first stage of the Birs, which I fully described in approach¬ 
ing the eastern face. My advance to the northern steep, was 
* See Plate LXX. f See Plate LXIX. % See Plates LXIX. and LXX. 
