In November, 1899, Professor Hilprecht started for the field, to superintend the explorations in person, and on the way he wrote to the "S. S. Times" (published December 13): "The deeper the trenches of the Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania descend into the lower strata of Nippur, the probable site of the biblical Calneh, the more important and interesting become the results obtained. The work of clearing the northeastern wall of the high-towering temple of Bel was continued with success during the summer months. Particularly numerous were the inscribed vase fragments brought to light, and almost exclusively belonging to the pre-Sargonic period,—3800 B. C. and before. As I showed in the second part of Volume I of our official University publication, this fragmentary condition of the vases is due to the wilful destruction of the temple property by the victorious Elamitic hordes, who, towards the end of the third pre-Christian millennium, ransacked the Babylonian cities, extending their conquest and devastation even as far as the shores of the Mediterranean Sea (comp. Gen. 14). From the earliest historical period down to about 2200 B. C., when this national calamity befell Babylonia, the large temple storehouse, with its precious statues, votive slabs and vases, memorial stones, bronze figures, and other gifts from powerful monarchs and governors, had practically remained intact. What, therefore, is left of the demolished and scattered contents of this ancient chamber as a rule is found above the platform of Ur-Ninib (about 2500 B. C.), in a layer several feet thick and about twenty-five feet wide, surrounding the front and the two side walls of the temple. The systematic clearing and examination of this layer, and of the huge mass of ruins lying above it, occupied the attention of the expedition considerably in the past years, and was continued with new energy during the past six months." At the end of January, 1900, Professor Hilprecht arrived in Babylonia, and wrote some weeks later to the "Sunday School Times" (May 3): "As early as eleven years ago, the present writer pointed out that the extensive group of hills to the southwest of the temple of Bel must be regarded as the probable site of the temple library of ancient Nippur. About twenty-five hundred tablets were rescued from the trenches in this hill during our first campaign. Later excavations increased the number of tablets taken from these mounds to about fifteen thousand. But it was only within the last six weeks that my old theory could be established beyond any reasonable doubt. {16} During this brief period a series of rooms was exposed which furnished not less than over sixteen thousand cuneiform documents, forming part of the temple library during the latter half of the third millennium B. C. In long rows the