THE TOWER OF BABEL. 
311 
much interrupted by large masses of fine and solid brick-work, 
projecting from amongst the far-spreading heaps of rubbish at 
its base, and which had evidently been parts of the original 
facing of the lower ranges of the pile. I shall describe these 
fragments more particularly hereafter; meanwhile observing, 
that it is only on the northern side they occur. 
The tower-like ruin on the extreme summit is a solid mass, 
28 feet broad, constructed of the most beautiful brick masonry, 
and presenting the apparent angle of some structure originally 
of a square shape; the remains of which stand on the east, to a 
height of 35 feet, and to the south 22 feet. It is rent from the 
top to nearly half-way to the bottom; unquestionably by some 
great convulsion of nature, or some even more extraordinary 
destructive efforts of man. The materials of the masonry are 
furnace-burnt bricks, of a much thinner fabrick than most of 
those which are found east of the river, on the spot to which 
some writers confine the remains of Babylon. I liad not ex¬ 
plored that ground when I first visited the Birs Nimrood ; but I 
had seen many of the Babylonian bricks at Hillah, forming the 
court and walls of the house I inhabited; and which had been 
brought from the mounds of the ancient great city, to assist in 
erecting the modern miserable town. The cement which holds 
the bricks together, that compose the ruin on the summit of the 
Birs, is so hard, that my most violent attempts could not 
separate them. Hence I failed in discovering whether these 
bore any inscriptive stamps on their surface; marks invariably 
found, where they exist at all, on the side of the bricks which 
faces downwards. Why they were so placed, we cannot guess ; 
but so it is, in all the primitive remains of ancient Babylonia; 
but in the more modern structures of Bagdad, Hillah, and 
