The story as inscribed thereon, being deciphered by Professor Hilprecht, not only tallies with the Bible record but adds minute details and clarifies in some particulars the inspired narrative contained in Genesis.[65] The newspapers of the time of this "find" contain this account of the difficulty in the way of the tablet's decipherment: "Because of its long period in the earth the tablet was incrusted with crystals of nitre, which filled up the characters of the ancient text. Besides, the clay was in a state of decomposition and exceedingly difficult to handle without destroying the tablet and losing the precious writing on it. For weeks Professor Hilprecht worked several hours a day to remove the crystals and to put the tablet into a state in which it could be deciphered. Then he set about the work of translating the writing." The chief library of ancient Assyria--and the one of which we have the most definite knowledge--was that of _Assur-bani-pal_ at Nineveh. This distinguished king of Assyria, successor of Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esar-haddon, and the conqueror of Babylon, greatly enlarged the library of which his predecessors had made beginnings, bringing into it the plundered books of Babylonia and otherwise greatly developing its resources. The date of this library at Nineveh is fixed at about 670 B. C., and is accredited to have contained in its archives more than thirty thousand tablets and a large collection of hexagonal and octagonal cylinders, seals, and other valuable archæological treasures, including clay sarcophagi. Assur-bani-pal sent his scribes to copy the vocabularies of foreigners wherever accessible and added thus to the treasures of his library by the extensive transcription of tablets and cylinders. Professor Sayce tells us that "a whole army of scribes were employed in it, busily engaged in writing and editing old texts." In the library, too, the study of the Accadian tongue was revived and the language and literature of the primitive progenitors of the Assyrio-Babylonians was written, not only with Babylonian translations but also with their Assyrian equivalents. Sir Henry Layard, as long ago as in 1850, in the course of his explorations unearthed on the site of this old library more than twenty thousand clay tablets, which were brought, later, to the British Museum. It was estimated that as many more tablets remained as had been carried away. These tablets vary in dimensions, the largest measuring from nine inches by six and a half while the smallest in some cases are not more than an inch long and with but one or two lines of writing on them. These tablets are covered over with cuneiform characters. These characters are so small on some of the cylinders and tablets that, according to Professor George Rawlinson, five or six lines have been traced within the space of an inch. The delicate character of the writing on some of the tablets has led some of the archæologists to conclude that the inscriptions thereon