'Narrative of a journey to the site of Babylon in 1811, now first published: memoir on the ruins; with engravings from the original sketches by the author: remarks on the topography of ancient Babylon, by Major Rennell; in reference to the memoir: second memoir on the ruins; in reference to Major Rennell's remarks: with narrative of a journey to Persepolis: now first printed, with hitherto unpublished cuneiform inscriptions copied at Persepolis: by the late Claudius James Rich, Esq., formerly the Resident of the Hon. East India Company at Bagdad. Edited by his widow.' [‎124] (212/474)

124
OF THE TOPOGRAPHY OF
" broad, terminating on the top in a ridge.* It has
« been dug into, in various parts but few or no fine
" whole bricks have been found in it." This, one can
only regard as a vast mass of decomposed red bricks ;
and if the decomposition be the effect of time, it
would imply that the lesser palace (if of such this
may be taken for a part) is of much higher antiquity
than the other.
From the scanty notices given respecting the
southern mound, or Mound of Amran, it is difficult
to form an opinion whether it did or did not originally
constitute one mass with that of the Kasr, and that
the low space between them "covered with rank
" grass, and crossed by a line of ruins of
" elevation^ (see page 62), has not been reduced to
that state by the action of the Euphrates in varying
its course through it, from one side of it to the other,
at different periods ; or at least that those mounds
approximated towards each other more than at pre
sent : for doubtless the south mound of the Kasr
looks in the Plan as if it had been worn away by the
stream, as the western side evidently does, as having
formed one of the banks of the bed of the
same river. Again, the northern side of the Mound
of Amran appears also to have been acted on by the
stream. I conclude that these operations took place
* As Mr. Rich had no opportunity of correcting the press, it is pos
sible that the numbers may be wrong. They evidently appear to be
so in some parts of the Memoir.
+ A part perhaps of too great solidity for the stream to dissolve or
to remove.