ame from near Damascus, and the
cyanus, a kind of lapis-lazuli, which was a production of Phoenicia. No
doubt the Babylonian love of gems caused the provinces to be carefully
searched for stones; and it is not improbable that they yielded besides
the varieties already named, and the other unknown kinds mentioned by
Pliny, many, if not most, of the materials which we find to have
been used for seals by the ancient people. These are, cornelian,
rock-crystal, chalcedony, onyx, jasper, quartz, serpentine, sienite,
haematite, green felspar, pyrites, loadstone, and amazon-stone.

Stone for building was absent from Babylonia Proper and the alluvial
tracts of Susiana, but in the other provinces it abounded. The Euphrates
valley could furnish stone at almost any point above Hit; the mountain
regions of Susiana could supply it in whatever quantity might be
required; and in the western provinces it was only too plentiful. Near
to Babylonia the most common kind was limestone; but about Had-disah on
the Euphrates there was also a gritty, silicious rock alternating with
iron-stone, and in the Arabian Desert were sandstone and granite. Such
stone as was used in Babylon itself, and in the other cities of the
low country, probably either came down the Euphrates, or was brought
by canals from the adjacent part of Arabia. The quantity, however, thus
consumed was small, the Babylonians being content for most uses with
the brick, of which their own territory gave them a supply practically
inexhaustible.

The principal wild animals known to have inhabited the Empire in ancient
times are the following: the lion, the panther or large leopard, the
hunting leopard, the bear, the hyena, the wild ox, the buffalo (?), the
wild ass, the stag, the antelope, the ibex or wild goat, the wild sheep,
the wild boar, the wolf, the jackal, the fox, the hare, and the rabbit.
Of these, the lion, leopard, bear, stag, wolf, jackal, and fox seem to
have been very widely diffused, while the remainder were rarer, and,
generally speaking, confined to certain localities. The wild ass was
met with only in the dry parts of Mesopotamia, and perhaps of Syria, the
buffalo and wild boar only in moist regions, along the banks of rivers
or among marshes. The wild ox was altogether scarce; the wild sheep, the
rabbit, and the hare, were probably not common.

To this list may be added as present denizens of the region, and
therefore probably belonging to it in ancient times,