RESEARCHES IN MESOPOTAMIA.—The archæological researches conducted during this century have definitely established the fact that the earliest civilizations flourished in the Valley of the Euphrates and in the district of the Nile. Until the beginning of this century, Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria were little more than names. The spirit of skepticism which accompanies the keen desire for investigation led scholars to question the tales found in classical writers of the great achievements of the Babylonians and Egyptians. At the beginning of this century scarcely a vestige remained of the cities of ancient Mesopotamia. The site of Nineveh was unknown, and that of Babylon was in dispute. A profound sensation was created when, in 1842, P. E. Botta, the French Consul at Mosul, discovered the remains of a palace beneath a mound at Khorsabad, some miles to the north of Mosul on the east bank of the Tigris. Botta’s discovery marked the beginning of an activity and exploration in Mesopotamia which continues to the present day. At first the excavations were confined to the mounds in the north, in which the palaces of the great Assyrian kings, Sargon, Esarhaddon, Sennacharib and Asurbanibal (or Sardanapalus as he was called by Greek writers) were unearthed, as well as the great sacred edifices that formed one of the glories of ancient Assyria. The buildings exhumed abound in long series of sculptured slabs, on which are depicted incidents in the campaigns of the kings and in their private life. Historical records on stone and clay furnished the needed details in illustration of the scenes, and lastly, literary remains in profusion were found, which revealed the intellectual life and religious aspirations of the masses and of the secular and religious leaders. To England and France belongs the glory of these early explorations. Through Botta and Sir Austen Henry Layard, the ancient cities of Nineveh, Calah, and Ashur, were rediscovered. But as the field of activity extended to the mounds in the south, in the Valley of the Euphrates, other countries, notably Germany and the United States, joined in the work. The excavation of the remains of the city of Babylon were first conducted by Sir Henry Rawlinson in 1854, and much work was afterward done by Hormuzd Rassam; but the most notable achievements of recent years are the excavations conducted by DeSarzec, under the auspices of the French Government, at Telloh, from 1881 to 1895, and those of the University of Pennsylvania at Nippur, begun in 1888, and which are still going on.