ht of the
Chaldaean ruins; and depressed mounds are commonly the sign of an
ancient and long-deserted city. Such remains give us an insight into
the character of the early people, which it is impossible to obtain from
ruins where various populations have raised their fabrics in succession
upon the same spot.

[Illustration: PLATE 4]

The cities here enumerated may not perhaps, in all cases, have existed in
the Chaldaean period. The evidence hitherto obtained connects distinctly
with that period only the following--Babylon, Ur or Hur, Larrak or Larsa,
Erech or Huruk, Calneh or Nopher, Sippara, Dur-Kurri-galzu, Chilmad, and
the places now called Abu Shahrein and Tel-Sifr. These sites, it will be
observed, were scattered over the whole territory from the extreme south
almost to the extreme north, and show the extent of the kingdom to have
been that above assigned to it. They are connected together by a
similarity in building arrangements and materials, in language, in form
of type and writing, and sometimes in actual names of monarchs. The most
ancient, apparently, are those towards the south, at Warka, Senkereh,
Mugheir, and Niffer; and here, in the neighborhood of the sea, which then
probably reached inland as far as Suk-es-Sheioukh, there is sufficient
reason to place the primitive seat of Chaldaean power. The capital of
the whole region was at first Ur or Hur, but afterwards became Nipur, and
finally Babel or Babylon.

The geography of Chaldaea is scarcely complete without a glance at the
countries which adjoin upon it. On the west, approaching generally
within twenty or thirty miles of the present course of the Euphrates, is
the Arabian Desert, consisting in this place of tertiary sand and
gravels, having a general elevation of a few feet above the Mesopotamian
plain, and occasionally rising into ridges of no great height, whose
direction is parallel to the course of the great stream. Such are the
Hazem and the Qassaim, in the country between the Bahr-i-Nedjif and the
Persian Gulf, low pebbly ridges which skirt the valley from the Bahr to
below Suk-es-Sheioukh. Further west the desert becomes more stony, its
surface being strewn with numerous blocks of black granite, from which it
derives its appellation of Hejerra. No permanent streams water this
region; occasional "wadys" or torrent-courses, only full after heavy
rains, are found; but the scattered inhabitants depend for water chiefly
on their wells, wh