In the time of the kings _Kadashman-bel_ and _Burnaburiash II_. (about 1400 B.C.) falls the _Amarna Correspondence_ (see p. 40). At _Tell el-Amarna_, in upper Egypt, were unearthed, in 1887, more than three hundred clay tablets containing diplomatic dispatches, written in the cuneiform character, and nearly all in the Babylonian language. They were addressed to the Egyptian king, or to his ministers, and had been sent from various officials and royal personages in Babylonia, Assyria, Palestine (including a number of letters from _Abdi-khiba_ of _Jerusalem_), and other districts. They furnish a large amount of important information as to conditions in western Asia at that early period. An important _Kassite_ dynasty occupied the throne of Babylon from the eighteenth century to the twelfth century B.C. Under these Kassite rulers, the kingdom at length declined, while the neighboring Assyrian state had increased in power. Later still, apparently not earlier than the ninth century B.C., the _Chaldoeans_ (of Semitic stock?) pushed north-westward into Babylonia from their district about the mouth of the Euphrates, and eventually made themselves masters of the land. RELIGION AND SCIENCE.--If the events connected with old Babylon are less known, more is ascertained respecting its civilization. The groundwork, as was stated, was laid by the earlier conquered people. The religion of the Babylonians rested on the basis of the old Sumerian worship. There was homage to demons, powerful for good or for evil, who were brought together into groups, and were figured now as human beings, now as lions or other wild animals, or as dragons and that sort of monsters. Of the great gods, _Anu_, the god of the sky, was the father and king of all. _Sin_, the moon-god, a Sumerian divinity, at the outset had the highest rank. _Bel_, or _Baal_, however, a Semitic divinity, was the god of the earth, and particularly of mankind. _Ea_ was the god of the deep, and of the underworld. The early development of astrology and its great influence in old Babylon were closely connected with the supposed association of the luminaries above with the gods. The stars were thought to indicate at the birth of a child what his fortunes would be, and to afford the means of foretelling other remarkable events. _Ishtar_, a goddess of war and of love, was worshiped also under the name _Beltis_, the Greek _Mylitta_. This deity embodied the _generative principle_, the spring of fertility, whose beneficent agency was seen in the abundant harvest. She was clothed with sensual attributes, and propitiated with unchaste rites. It was in the worship of this divinity that the coarse and licentious side of the Semitic nature expressed itself. At the same time, there was an opposite ascetic side in the service of this deity. Her priests were eunuchs: they ministered at her altar in woman's attire. On the relation of the human soul to the gods, and its