'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in reference to Major Rennell's remarks: with narrative of a journey to Persepolis: now first printed, with hitherto unpublished cuneiform inscriptions copied at Persepolis: by the late Claudius James Rich, Esq., formerly the Resident of the Hon.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.' [‎309] (452/474)

NO. IX.]
APPENDIX.
309
been removed, a smooth surface remained where the
cement was worn away by time, which is not the case with
any dilapidation of the sides or facings of walls, though it
necessarily would be with their summits.
"Nothing was more evident, however, than that this was
a solid mass of wall, and no part of it a chambered or in
habited edifice. Its appearance indicated that it had been
built on an inclined slope from the westward or interior
face, at least that being the side on which our ascent was
made ; its dimensions being from eighty to one hundred
feet thick at the base, twelve to fifteen feet thick at the
top, and seventy to eighty feet in perpendicular height.
The bricks were of the usual square form and size, of a
reddish yellow colour, with slight appearances of chopped
straw having been used in their composition, but not very
decidedly marked; they had not, in any instance that I
could perceive, inscriptions, figures, or writing on their
surface. The cement used to connect the layers was ex
tremely thin, and of the same colour with the bricks them
selves, but not of the extraordinary tenacity of that at the
Kasr; nor was the masonry so neat and highly finished,
being perhaps of an earlier date.
"The greatest peculiarity observed at this pile, and one
which hitherto, at least, is unique in the known ruins of
Babylon, was, that at intervening spaces rather wider than
those of the reeds at Akkerkoof, and recurring at every
fifteenth or twentieth course of bricks, appeared a layer of
an extremely white substance, which was seen in small
filaments on the bricks, like the crossing of fine pieces
of straw ; or, as it struck me forcibly on the spot, like the
texture of the Egyptian papyrus. Between two of he
bricks, that I separated with much ease from the pile, e
layer of this substance seemed about a quarter of an inch
thick. The filaments were clearly discernible, and, w en