The question of a suitable water-supply agitated municipal Babylon just as keenly as it does any of our own great centres of population, and recent excavations have illustrated the manner in which the Euphrates was utilized for this purpose. Nabopolasser has left inscriptions to show how he rebuilt the walls of a channel called the Arakhtu to lead the river Euphrates past the city boundaries. Nebuchadrezzar built a massive fortification with walls of from fifty to sixty feet in thickness into the bed of the Euphrates to prevent the formation of sandbanks in the river which possibly caused the flooding of the left bank above the temple of E-Sagila. This left a narrow channel between the new wall and the old quay, and it is probable that this huge construction caused a subsequent change in the course of the Euphrates. Nebuchadrezzar's Palace Nebuchadrezzar's palace was situated in the southern citadel on the mound known as the Kasr. On this building he lavished both time and treasure. When he came to the throne he found the site occupied by the residence of his father Nabopolasser, but when he returned from his triumphant Egyptian campaigns he despised the plain old place and, like some modern potentates, resolved to build himself a royal edifice which would symbolize the power and majesty of the empire he had won for himself. He turned his father's palace into a mere platform upon which to rear his own more flamboyant structure, and filled in its rooms, courts, and spaces with rubble. The Palace without Windows For the most part the palace was built round open courts, much in the Spanish fashion, and there is no trace of windows, a phenomenon which constantly recurs in ancient buildings in the East, in Egypt, and in Central America. But when we consider the extremes of heat encountered in these latitudes we can appreciate the desire for a cool semi-gloom which called for the windowless chamber. The flat roofs, too, were used for sleeping purposes, so that the inhabitants did not wholly dispense with fresh air. The Great Throne Room