It will hardly be necessary even to allude to the decipherment of the mysterious written characters of the Chaldeans. There is probably no one now living, who has followed up the course of the inquiry with anything like a proper degree of study, who has any doubt regarding the general correctness of the interpretation of the arrow-headed inscriptions. Singularly enough, the great difficulty is with regard to proper names, which as a rule were not spelt phonetically, but were made up of symbols. This is provoking, as these names afford the readiest means of comparing the monuments with our histories; and the uncertainty as to their pronunciation has induced many to fancy that the foundation of the whole system is unstable. But all this is becoming daily less and less important as the history itself is being made out from the monuments themselves. It may also be true that, when it is attempted to translate literally metaphysical or astrological treatises, there may still be differences of opinion as to the true meaning of a given passage; but plain historical narratives can be read with nearly as much certainty as a chapter of Herodotus or of Plutarch; and every day is adding to the facility with which they can be deciphered, and to the stock of materials and facts with which the readings may be checked or rectified. From the materials already collected, combined with the chronology above sketched out, we are enabled to divide the architectural history of the Middle Asiatic countries during the period of their ancient greatness into three distinct and well-defined epochs. 1st. The ancient Babylonian or Chaldean period, ranging from B.C. 2234 to 1520, comprising the ruins at Wurka, Mugheyr, Abu Shahrein, Niffer, Kaleh Sherghat, &c. Temples, tombs, and private dwellings, all typical of a Turanian or Scythic race. 2nd. The Assyrian and second Chaldean kingdoms, founded about 1290 B.C., and extending down to the destruction of Babylon by Cyrus, 538 B.C., comprising all the buildings of Nimroud, Koyunjik, Khorsabad, and those of the second Babylon. An architecture essentially palatial, without tombs, and few temples, betokening the existence of a Semitic race.