about 40 feet, which leaves for the gangway behind the towers breadth sufficient for a chariot and four horses, or for two wagons of burden. We may maintain the assertion of Berosus, that it was Nebuchadnezzar who added a new city on the eastern bank of the Euphrates to the old city on the western bank, so that the Euphrates henceforth flowed through the city. We have already seen that the great temple of Bel Merodach, Bit Saggatu, the tower of Babel, was on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, opposite to the old city and the citadel of the ancient kings, who ruled over Babylon before the times of the Assyrian dominion; we recognised the remains of it in the most northern heap of the ruins of Babylon on that bank of the river, the heap of broken bricks now called Babil. In the ruins we can recognise the traces of a square structure, the sides of which are directed to the four quarters of the sky. Its extent reaches 1500 or 1600 feet; the ruins now rise 140 feet above the level of the Euphrates. Herodotus allows a stadium (600 feet) for each side of the tower; the outer wall with the gates of brass was two stades on each side.[706] Berosus tells us: "Nebuchadnezzar built a second palace beside the palace of his father, which abutted upon it. To describe its height and splendour would be superfluous: it was large and quite extraordinary."[707] Since the bricks of a ruin-heap to the south of the remains of the tower of Belus, on the east bank of the Euphrates, now called El Kasr--bricks which are twelve inches long and as many broad, and three inches in thickness--bear on the under side the stamp of Nebuchadnezzar, we are certain that the restorers of the kingdom, Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar, built their residences on this side of the Euphrates, opposite to the palace of the ancient kings. It is these which Ctesias has described to us as the smaller royal citadel, lying on the eastern bank, and enclosed by a wall of 30 stades in length. He dwells on the statues of brass to be found here, and the descriptions of battles and hunting-scenes (I. 298). So far as the fragments allow us to see, the palaces of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar formed a square structure, which, 1600 feet in length, ran from north to south, close along the bank of the river: from the bank towards the east the breadth of the ruins is 1200 feet. The remains still rise about 70 feet above the river. Slabs of stone discovered in these ruins bear the inscription: "Great palace of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babel, son of Nabopolassar, king of Babel, the worshipper of Nebo and Merodach his lords."[708] Among tiles and bricks, yellow and white, we find here a number of glazed tiles, with brightly-coloured remains of pictures in relief, of horses' hoofs, and lions' paws, of parts of the human body, curled beards, and long hair, which prove that the walls of the palace or the sides of the rooms were adorned with reliefs, in mosaic, of hunting-scenes and battles.