386 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
equivalent to our park. There is, however, I regret to say, no 
reference to Paradise on the Creation-tablets which are known to us 
at present. The explanation given by Delitzsch is most unsatis- 
factory, inasmuch as his forced identification of the Gihon with a 
river which he reads Guhanna is untenable ; but his disquisition is 
a most valuable contribution to the study of the cuneiform 
inscriptions. 
I have now laid before you all that I desire to say at present ; 
but I feel that I could not make the latter part of my lecture more 
interesting than I have. The interest which I could hope to awake 
in you could only be that interest which you would feel in the de- 
cipherment of two inscriptions which adorn your own museum. 
The tablets are not difficult to read, and I am fully prepared to 
stand by the translation which I have made. I have only met 
with two difficult phrases whose translation may be open to doubt ; 
but I am certain that I have given you a fairly accurate rendering 
of the text. The fact that makes these tablets of value is, that 
they have a few variants ; but their contents have been known 
ever since the publication of vol. i. of the Cuneiform Inscriptions 
of Western Asia in 1861. 
