re sometimes still visible. The principal specimens which have
been discovered are small bottles and bowls, the former not more than
three or four inches high, the latter from four to five inches in
diameter, [PLATE LXXXIII., Fig. 4.] The vessels are occasionally
inscribed with the name of a king, as is the case in the famous vase of
Sargon, found by Mr. Layard at Nimrud, which is here figured. [PLATE
LXXXIII., Fig. 2.] This is the earliest known specimen of _transparent
glass_, which is not found in Egypt until the time of the Psammetichi.
The Assyrians used also opaque glass, which they colored, sometimes red,
with the suboxide of copper, sometimes white, sometimes of other hues.
They seem not to have been able to form masses of glass of any
considerable size; and thus the employment of the material must have
been limited to a few ornamental, rather than useful, purposes. A
curious specimen is that of a pipe or tube, honey-combed externally,
which Mr. Layard exhumed at Koyunjik, and of which the cut [PLATE
LXXXIII., Fig. 1] is a rough representation.

An object found at Nimrud, in close connection with several glass
vessels, is of a character sufficiently similar to render its
introduction in this place not inappropriate. This is a lens composed of
rock crystal, about an inch and a half in diameter, and nearly an inch
thick, having one plain and one convex surface, and somewhat rudely
shaped and polished which, however gives a tolerably distinct focus at
the distance of 4 1/2 inches from the plane side, and which may have
been used either as a magnifying glass or to concentrate the rays of the
sun. The form is slightly oval, the longest diameter being one and
six-tenths inch, the shortest one and four-tenths inch. The thickness is
not uniform, but greater on one side than on the other. The plane
surface is ill-polished and scratched, the convex one, not polished on a
concave spherical disk, but fashioned on a lapidary's wheel, or by some
method equally rude. As a burn, glass the lens has no great power; but
it magnifies fairly, and may have been of great use to those who
inscribed, or to those who sought to decipher, the royal memoirs. It is
the only object of the kind that has been found among the remains of
antiquity, though it cannot he doubled that lenses were known and were
used as burning glasses by the Greeks.

Some examples have been already given illustrating the tasteful
ornamentation of Assyrian furniture.