vicissitudes of war or in the course of natural decay, some memorial of their deeds should still be preserved--a prevision which, in several cases, has been literally fulfilled. Sometimes the manner and material of these records were still more fanciful. At Khorsabad, at the very interior part of the construction, was found a large stone chest, which enclosed several inscribed plates in various materials. "... In this only extant specimen of an Assyrian foundation stone were found one little golden tablet, one of silver, others of copper, lead and tin; a sixth text was engraved on alabaster, and the seventh document was written on the chest itself."[W] Unfortunately the heavier portion of this remarkable find was sent with a collection which foundered on the Tigris and was lost. Only the small plates,--gold, silver, copper and tin (antimonium scholars now think it to be)--survived, and the inscriptions on them have been read and translated. They all commemorate, in very nearly the same terms, the foundation and erection of a new city and palace by a very famous king and conqueror, generally (though not correctly) called Sargon, and three of them end with a request to the kings his successors to keep the building in good repair, with a prayer for their welfare if they do and a heavy curse if they fail in this duty: "Whoever alters the works of my hand, destroys my constructions, pulls down the walls which I have raised,--may Asshur, Nineb, Raman and the great gods who dwell there, pluck his name and seed from the land and let him sit bound at the feet of his foe." Most inscriptions end with invocations of the same kind, for, in the words of Menant: "it was not mere whim which impelled the kings of Assyria to build so assiduously. Palaces had in those times a destination which they have no longer in ours. Not only was the palace indeed _the dwelling of royalty_, as the inscriptions have it,--it was also the BOOK, which each sovereign began at his accession to the throne and in which he was to record the history of his reign."[X] [Illustration: 52.--PRISM OF SENNACHERIB. ALSO CALLED "TAYLOR CYLINDER."] [Illustration: 53.--INSCRIBED CYLINDER FROM BORSIP.] And each such book of brick and stone we can with perfect truth call a chapter--or a volume--of the great Book of the Past whose leaves are scattered over the face of the earth. FOOTNOTES: [U] See Fig. 48, p. 111. [V] See above, Figs. 49 and 50. [W] Dr. Julius Oppert, "Records of the Past," Vol. XI., p. 31. [X] "Les Ecritures Cuneiformes," of Joachim Menant: page 198 (2d edition, 1864). [Illustration: CHALDEA AND NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES] THE STORY OF CHALDEA. I. NOMADS AND SETTLERS.--THE FOUR STAGES OF CULTURE.