Berosus was a Chaldean priest who lived in the days of Alexander the Great. He was a very learned man. He translated the history of Babylonia into the Greek language. His history commences with the creation and is carried down to his own time. He drew from the ancient records of Babylonia, from traditions of the people, and from inscriptions on the monuments. We have already referred to the traditions of the creation and deluge which he preserved. About 2400 B.C., according to Berosus, the Medes conquered Babylonia. Here for the first time we meet with the name of Zoroaster, the founder of Parseeism. The record of Berosus is very much valued because of the ground which it covers. It is wonderfully in agreement with the Bible record. At first his statements were questioned and disputed, but the researches of modern scholars in many respects confirmed their complete accuracy. RUINED MONUMENTS. The ruins of Chaldea have been as yet but imperfectly explored. The great buildings and monuments have been buried beneath the ground for hundreds of years, and the work of digging them out is a slow one. When we remember that these cities and their buildings were among the first ever erected, and that Nebuchadnezzar (or Nabukudur-ussur, as Berosus calls him,) and his successors only repaired and added to these, we can see the value of exhuming them. Stone is very rare in Chaldea, and could be brought only at great expense from a distance. Hence all the buildings of earlier ages were built of bricks. So we read of the Tower of Babel, that “they had bricks for stone.” On each one of these bricks was generally stamped the name of the king who erected the building. The greater part of the early Chaldean inscriptions are found on these bricks. Herodotus tells us that the Babylonians built with these sun-dried bricks, and with here and there a layer of reed-matting cemented with bitumen. The outsides of the buildings were covered with burnt or kiln-dried bricks to keep out the rain. More elaborate specimens of their pottery appear in articles for domestic uses, and especially in their coffins. [Illustration: BABYLONISH COFFIN AND LID OF GREEN GLAZED POTTERY.] The sacred buildings appear to have been often built in the form of a pyramid, with steps or stages, forming a series of terraces, each smaller than the one beneath it. This is the traditional style of buildings of the Tower of Babel. The same tendency to build high sacred buildings is seen in the pagodas of India, Burmah and China, in the Mohammedan towers, like the Koutub Minar, and the spires of Christian churches. The object at the first seems to have been the getting nearer to the heavenly bodies, the object of their worship. On the upper terrace, or platform, appears to have been built in most cases, a small chapel, or square room, richly ornamented, containing an image of the god of the temple.