...................... ....... may it be ....... like the vault of ....... may it be strong above and below. Enclose the ... and ............... [At] the time that I shall send to thee Enter [the ship] and close the door of the ship, Into the midst of it [take] thy grain, thy furniture, and [thy] goods, Thy . . ., thy family, thy relatives, and the artisans; [The beasts] of the field, the animals of the field, as many as I shall collect (?), [I will] send to thee, and thy door shall protect them. [Atra]-ḫasis opened his mouth and spake, Sa]ying to Aê, his lord: “...... a ship I have not made ....... Form [its shape (?) upon the gr]ound. Let me see the [plan], and [I will build] the ship. [Form] ...... on the ground ........ ........ what thou hast said ....... ......................... It is not improbable that the fragment published by the Rev. V. Scheil, O. P., belongs to this legend (see _The King’s Own_,(12) April 1898, pp. 397-400). CHAPTER IV. ASSYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND THE HEBREWS, WITH REFERENCE TO THE SO-CALLED GENEALOGICAL TABLE. The Akkadians—The Semitic Babylonians—The Hebrews—Nimrod—Assur—The Tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues—Babylonian temple-towers—How the legend probably arose—The Patriarchs to the time of Abraham. “And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. “He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. “And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. “Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth (or, the streets of the city), and Calah. “And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.” Such is the Biblical account of the origin of the two most powerful states of the ancient East, Babylonia and Assyria. It has been many times quoted and discussed, but there seems always to be something new to say about it, or to add to it, or what has already been said may be put in another and clearer way. It is for one or more of these reasons, as well as for the completeness of this work, that the author ventures again to approach the well-worn problems that these verses present. Every reader, on taking up a book dealing with this period of ancient Eastern history, will probably have noticed, that the word which most frequently meets his eye (if the book be an English one) is Akkad, the Semitic equivalent of the Biblical Accad. If, however, it be a continental work, the equivalent expression will be Šumer—which word, indeed, he will meet with also in English works, if the writer be at all under German or other foreign influence.