The Sun.
London, England, 1815-11-18 00:00:00

itself in the rubbish. Tice natives call this the
serdanb or cellar ; -and a respectable person in-
formed me that four years ago some 'men .searehing
in it for bricks, pulled out a quantity of marble,
•and afterwards a coffin of mulberry wood, con-
taining a human body inclosed in a tight wrap-
per, and apparently partially covered with .hitn-
men, which crumbled into dust soon after ex-
posure to the air. This account, together with
its appearing the most favourable. Spot to ascertain
something of the original plan of the whole, in-
duced me to set twelve men to work 'to open a
passage into the serdaub from above. They dug
into a shaft or hollow pier, sixty feet square, lined,
.with fine brick laid in bitumen, .and filled up with
earth ; in this they found a brass spike, some
.earthen vessels (one of which was very thin, and
had the remain of 'fine white varnish on the out-
'side), and a beam of date-tree wood. On the
third day's work they wade their way into the
opening, and disebvereda narrow passage nearly
ten feet high half filled with rubbish, flat on the-
top, and exhibiting both burnt and nnburnt bricks;
the former with inscriptions on them, and the
latter,- as usual, laid with a layer of reeds be-
tween every row, except in one or two courses
near the bottom, where they were cemented with
'bitumen ; a .curious and unaccountable eircutt-
stance. This passage appeared as if it originally
had a lining of fine burnt brick cemented with
bitumen, to conceal the unbitrnt brick, of which
the body of the building was principally composed.
Fronting it is another passage tor rather a mai-.
natation of the same to the eastward, in which
direct-ion it probably extends at considerable dis
tance, . perhaps even all along the northern front
of the ISlnjelibe,) choked up with earth, in dig-
ging out which I discovered near the top.a wooden
coffin containing a skeleton in high preservation.
Under the head of the coffin was a round pebble;
attached to the coffin on the outside a brass bird,
Land inside an ornament of the sione material,
which had apparently been suspended to. some
part of the skeleton. These, could any'doubt re-
main, place the antiquity of the skeleton !)eyoncl
all dispute. This.being extracted,. a little further
in the rubbish, the skeleton of a child was found ;
and it is probable that the whole of the passage,
whatever its extent may he, was occupied in .4.
similar manlier. No skulls were found, either
here or in the sepulchral urns at the bank of the
river."

Though our limits prevent us from making fnr-
ther extracts, we ought not to conclude our Re-
view without noticing that Mr. Ricn proceeds to
take a survey of the Ruins on the LVestern Bank
of the Euphrates, where he finds and most in,
tercstingly describes another prodigious mass of
Ruins, called by the Arabs Ilirs Nemroud, and by
the Jews, Nebuchadnezzars Prison.
This astonishing collection of the wrecks of
httnow labour, the Author, we think with good
reason, endeavours to prove, is the real 're-
sulutn of the mighty Tower to which sacred
and prgane histories have attached so many
legends, We cannot enter into the details
on this subject, but only observing, that the
plates illustrate, it, as well as the Mujeliba and
general aspect of Haab and its surrounding won-
ders, b,eg to recommend it as a portion of the
work peculiarly deserving the attention of the
curious and the learned.