Meantime, under the direction of George Smith and Ormuzd Rassam, the mounds which covered the site of Nineveh were made to yield further treasures which were quite as extraordinary as any which had been brought to light by Botta and Layard. A discovery by Smith of a tablet relating, it was supposed, to the Noachian deluge, convinced many that Assyrian archæology was destined to render incalculable aid in the study of Sacred Scripture. Although its apologetic value subsequently proved to be greatly overestimated by some of the more enthusiastic students of Assyrian antiquities, it soon became manifest that the new science was destined to throw a flood of light not only on the Old Testament but also on the history of the greatest nations of the ancient world. We experienced special pleasure in exploring the mounds which covered the remains of imperial Nineveh. There was not, truth to tell, much to see which was either of interest or value, for everything of importance, that could be transported, had been forwarded to the museums of Europe as soon as they had been disinterred. On the mound of Nebi Yunus--Prophet Jonas--we visited the mosque which the Moslems declare contains the remains of the prophet who preached repentance to the sinful Ninevites. This mosque [said our Dominican companion] was originally a Christian monastery that was built in the fourth century by a disciple of St. Anthony of Egypt. He named it in honor of the Prophet Jonas, but when the building, long afterwards, came into the possession of the Mussulmans, it was converted into a mosque. It, however, retained its original name--Prophet Jonas--which it bears to this day. The inhabitants here exhibit a flat stone which they guard as a treasure beyond price. “It was upon this stone,” they aver, “that the great fish deposited Jonas when it returned him to _terra firma_.” Since that time the stone is reputed to have the power of curing rheumatism by simply being brought into contact with the afflicted part. So highly do the natives prize this remedial agent that nothing could induce them to part with it. When we told them of the curative powers attributed to the Hittite stone at Aleppo they gravely assured us that the stone of Nebi Yunus possessed incomparably greater efficacy and that it afforded certain relief to all cases of rheumatism however malignant.