Chinese languages are closely allied, and that a great many words are identical. The early prehistoric and astronomical legends were almost similar, and in some instances, as in the division of the year, the names and order of the planets, and the number and duration of the fabulous reigns of gods, so identical as to leave no doubt of their having had a common origin. But as the Chinese annals do not extend farther back than about 2700 B.C., the priority of invention must be assigned to the Accadians. This Turanian population had been long settled in Mesopotamia before the accession of Sargon I., and before the supremacy of the Semitic races began to assert itself. Though called Accadian, which is said to mean "Highlanders," their principal seat was in Shumir or Lower Mesopotamia, in the alluvial delta formed in the course of ages by the Euphrates, Tigris, and other rivers which flow into the Persian Gulf; and their traditions point to their civilization having come from the shores of this Gulf, and having gradually spread northwards. Their most ancient cities and temples were in the Lower Province of Shumir, and the bulk of the population continued for ages to be Turanian, while in Accad or Upper Mesopotamia, where the land rises from the alluvial plain up to the mountains of Kurdistan and Armenia, the Semitic element preponderated from an early period, though the civilization and religion long remained those of Shumir or Chaldæa proper. When the Semite Sargon I. founded the united monarchy, the capital of which was Agade in the upper province, he made no change in the established state of things, maintained the old temples, and built new ones to the same gods. Before his reign we have, as in the parallel case of Egypt before Menes, little definite information from monuments or historical records. We only know that the country was divided into a number of small states, each grouped about a city with a temple dedicated to some god; as Eridhu, the sanctuary of Ea, one of the trinity of supreme gods; Larsam, with its Temple of the Sun; Ur, the city of the Moon-god; Sirgalla, with another famous temple. These small states were ruled by _patesi_, or priest-kings, a term corresponding to the Horsheshu of Egypt; and a fortunate discovery by M. de Sarzec in 1881 at Tell-loh, the site of the ancient Sirgalla, has given us valuable information respecting its _patesi_. To the surprise of the scientific world, with whom it had been a settled belief that no statues were ever found in Assyrian art, M. de Sarzec discovered and brought home nine large statues of diorite, a very hard black basalt of the same material as that of the statue of Chephren, the builder of the second pyramid, and in the same sitting attitude. The heads had been broken off, but one head was discovered which was of unmistakably Turanian type, beardless, shaved, and with a turban for head-dress. With these statues a number of small works