o be
incontestable that Chaldaea adopted this form for the largest and most
sumptuous of her temples, and why should we suppose the Assyrians to have
broken with that tradition and to have devoted to a different use buildings
planned and constructed on the same principle?

It is true that tablets have been found in the royal archives at Kouyundjik
upon which reports as to the condition of the heavens are recorded for the
guidance of the king,[482] but there is nothing in these so far as they
have been deciphered to show that the observations were taken from the
summit of a _zigguratt_. It is, however, very probable that the astronomers
availed themselves of such a height above the plain in order to escape from
floating vapours and to gain a wider horizon. The platform of the Khorsabad
tower must have had a superficial extent of about 180 square yards. There
may have been a chapel or tabernacle in the centre, and yet plenty of space
for the astrologers to do their work at their ease. We do not wish to deny,
therefore, that this tower and other monuments of the same kind may have
been used as observatories, but we believe that in Assyria, as in Chaldaea,
their primary object was a religious one--that they were raised so far
above the dwellings of man, even of the king himself, in order to do honour
to the gods whose sanctuaries were to crown their summits.[483]

NOTES:

[471] See _Les Fouilles de Chaldee_ in the _Revue archeologique_ for
November, 1881. M. de Sarzec refers us in his paper to a plan which has not
yet been laid before the Academy. We regret very much that its publication
should have been so long delayed, as we have been prevented from making as
much use as we should have wished of M. de Sarzec's architectural
discoveries.

[472] The clearest and most precise information upon the topography of
Babylon is to be found in Professor RAWLINSON's essay on that subject in
the second volume of his translation of HERODOTUS (p. 570, in the third
edition).

[473] In making his calculations, Professor RAWLINSON has certainly
forgotten to take into account the pier or section of wall that still
stands upright upon the surface of the mound (OPPERT, _Expedition
scientifique_, vol. i. pp. 260, _et seq._). It is clearly shown in our
figure--Sir Henry LAYARD leaves us in no doubt on this score: "The
Birs-Nimroud rises to a height of 198 feet, and has on its summit a compact
mass of brickwork thirty-seven feet high by t