The commercial spirit, which swayed this portion of the river-valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, engendered a powerful activity in a practical direction. Whilst we build railways--the Babylonians dug canals, connected the two rivers, and constructed aqueducts. They built palaces at Nineveh, castles (El Kassr) at Babylon, and an immense nekropolis at Vurka, about 180 English miles from Bagdad, and about 8 miles to the east of the Euphrates. At every step in the interior of these ruins we find clay-coffins piled up to a height of from 15-20 feet. All these ruins are now covered with saltpetre, small shells and broken pottery. The remains of the walls are from 12-22 feet thick, partly of unbaked and partly of baked bricks. The construction everywhere closely imitates wood-work, and the decoration reproduces textile fabrics such as carpets and striped tent covers. There are capitals in stucco of the Ionic and even of the Corinthian type; though the leaves are those of the palm-tree instead of the Acanthus. The volute of the Ionic capital is rather in the form of two serpents drinking from a cup, than in the form of rams’ horns. We might call this old Babylonian stucco capital, the proto-Ionic type. On the two shores of the Euphrates, as far as Babylon, coffins of green glazed clay and small terra-cotta tablets with cuneiform inscriptions have been found by thousands. These coffins were imitations of dead bodies, swathed in cloths and tied with cords. In addition to this reproduction of textile fabrics in clay, we find with the Cis-Himâlâyans a tendency to overlay wood-carvings with metal coatings. When they advanced more in metallotechnic they still held to patterns which clearly had their origin in wood-carvings. The plant-like forms predominate; then we have the quilloche, palm-leaves, or feathers arranged in the form of palm-leaves, and the pine-cone, which is often used in eurythmical variation with the conventionally-treated open or closed tulips, and open or closed lotus flowers. The pictorial art of the Assyrians and Babylonians shows us two distinct periods--an older and a more recent one. The older works had a bluish-green ground; the later a light, either whitish or yellowish, ground. In both styles the outlines are marked strongly in black or dark red. In the older, the sinews are more rope-like and less correct in their anatomy. In the more recent style a finer treatment, and a more correct knowledge of the human frame, may be traced. Wild animals are reproduced with a keen eye of observation, and a strong tendency to naturalism.