This was a fine, tenacious clay of the region which had been moulded into bricks and cylinders of various sizes, upon which when moist the cuneiform letters had been impressed by a wooden or metal stylus. They had then, for the greater part, been hardened by a slow fire, and were thus made practically indestructible. These cuneiform books were soon distributed in the great libraries and museums of Europe, and thus became accessible to scholars. Among these literary documents were found a large number which consisted of translations, either interlinear or in parallel passages, from a non-Semitic language into Assyro-Babylonian. It appeared in two dialects, the speech of the early people of northern Babylonia—the people of Accad—and the speech of the primitive inhabitants of southern Babylonia—the people of Sumir or Shinar. The close alliance of the peoples of Accad and Sumir in race and language has led to the general application of the name of Accadians to both families. A closer distinction in general terms now adopted by scholars is Sumerian. Further discoveries rapidly following the unearthing of the Ninevite tablets, confirmed the evidences that these people were the inventors of cuneiform, and that the Sumerian dialect represented the most ancient of the cuneiform scripts. In the oldest inscriptions which have yet been found the characters are hardly as yet cuneiform. The lines are straight and simple, resembling somewhat the strokes and dashes appearing in words spelled by the electric telegraphic code. The arrangement of these is pictorial, forming picture hieroglyphics, and these were found to be ideographic and not phonetic. By degrees the wedge-shaped and arrow-headed characters appear, the pictorial forms are not so distinct and these characters express sound as well as ideas. The story revealed by these older inscriptions was a genuine surprise to scholars. It not only presented the remoter occupation of Mesopotamia by a hitherto unknown people, but also that while to Mesopotamia is to be accorded the distinction as the “mother land” of the arts and sciences, it was not to its Semitic inhabitants, the Assyrians and Babylonians of history, that this is due. Here, long before the appearance of a Semitic people in the land, scientific applications to the industrial arts were abundant. An extensive system of irrigation and canals were in use in the arid regions and drainage for the low lands near the sea. The arts of metallurgy were practised. Mathematics and geometry were applied to structures, and astronomy to measurements of time and planetary movements. They were builders of cities. As we have seen, they had invented a system of writing. In certain cities they had schools for scribes, and they had libraries where the literature thus developed was collected.