Such are the last verses of the first tablet of the so-called story of the Creation as known to the Babylonians, and though it would be better named if called the Story of Bêl and the Dragon, the references to the creation of the world that are made therein prevent the name from being absolutely incorrect, and it may, therefore, serve, along with the more correct one, to designate it still. As will be gathered from the above, the whole story centres in the wish of the goddess of the powers of evil to get creation—the production of all that is in the world—into her own hands. In this she is aided by certain gods, over whom she sets one, Kingu, her husband, as chief. In the preparations that she makes she exercises her creative powers to produce all kinds of dreadful monsters to help her against the gods whom she wishes to overthrow, and the full and vigorous description of her defenders, created by her own hands, adds much to the charm of the narrative, and shows well what the Babylonian scribes were capable of in this class of record. The first tablet breaks off after the speech of Tiamtu to her husband Kingu. The second one begins by stating how Aa or Ea heard of the plot of Tiamtu and her followers against the gods of heaven. When his first wrath on account of this had somewhat abated, he went and related the whole, in practically the same words as the story is given on the two foregoing pages, to Anšar, his father, who in his turn became filled with rage, biting his lips, and uttering cries of deepest grief. In the mutilated lines which follow Apsû’s subjugation seems to be referred to. After this is another considerable gap, and then comes the statement that Anšar applied to his son Anu, “the mighty and brave, whose power is great, whose attack irresistible,” saying that if he will only speak to her, the great Dragon’s anger will be calmed and her rage disappear. “(Anu heard) the words of his father Anšar, (Took the ro)ad towards her, and descended by her path, Anu (went),—he examined Tiamtu’s lair, and (Not having power to resist her?), turned back.” How the god excused himself to his father Anšar on account of his ignominious flight we do not know, the record being again defective at this point. With the same want of success the god Anšar then, as we learn from another part of the narrative, applied to the god Nudimmud, a deity who is explained in the inscriptions as being the same as the god Aa or Ea, but whom Professor Delitzsch is rather inclined to regard as one of the forms of Bêl. In the end the god Merodach, the son of Aa, was asked to be the champion of the gods against the great emblem of the powers of evil, the Dragon of Chaos. To become, by this means, the saviour of the universe, was apparently just what the patron-god of the city of Babylon desired, for he seems immediately to have accepted the task of destroying the hated Dragon—