The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-13 00:00:00

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.

CHELTENHAM, AUG. 9.

The evening meeting of Friday was held in the great
room of the College, when the members of the association
and the elite of the society of Cheltenham were assembled
to do honour to Sir Henry Rawlinson, the President of the
Section of Physical Geography and Ethnology, who had
promised a repetition of his discourse as delivered at Glas-
gow on cuneiform discovery.
The actual discovery of the mode of decyphering those
wonderful inscriptions which may be seen at the British
Museum on the Assyrian remains, covering in long lines
the sides of the colossal bulls, the great black obelisk, the
clay cylinders and bricks, the gems and seals of that extra-
ordinary era, is not so new in point of time as the parallel
discovery of the mode of reading the hieroglyphical writ-
ings of Dr. Young and M. Champollion. The original hint
of the former arose, it is said, from a wager, made by an
erudite German, who was employed during the war of the
first revolution at Bonn, in the character of a decypherer.
He boasted of his skill in this particular, and offered for a
wager to decypher anything. His friend proposed to him
the arrow-headed inscriptions in " Niebuhr's Travels ;"
he accepted the challenge, and taking the very simple
trilingual inscription of Ecbatana, he soon resolved the
Persian one into its elements, composed the rudiments
of an alphabet, and read the names and titles of Xerxes
and Darius, the son of Hystapsis. Colonel Rawlinson,
it appears, arrived at the same result by a similar process
the gallant colonel was connected with the Persian em-
bassy, and being stationed at Hamadan, the ancient Ecba-
tana, he was struck with the same inscription, cut on a
rock near that place, and by a similar process arrived at the
same, though entirely independent, results ; and he was as
much surprised as were the German philologers that a
young soldier in the heart of Persia had made the same dis-
covery as had been communicated to the learned world in
the " Annalen" of Gottingen some few years before. Since
this period the study of these inscriptions has been pursued
in Germany principally by Grotsford and Lassen; in France,
under the patronage and at the expense of the French
Government by Dr. Boppert ; but nowhere more success•
fully than by the unaided efforts of Col. Rawlinson in
England, and Dr. Hiuckes in Belfast. The mode of form-
ing these curious characters was a subject of discussion in
the geographical section on the morning of Friday on an
explanation given by Mr. Nasmyth, supported by Colonel
Rawlinson, and impugned by Dr. Whewell, the Master of
Trinity. Mr. Tite, at Bath, early in January of this year,
in the course of reading a paper in the Guildhall of that
city on these discoveries reproduced before his auditors,
in moist clay, a portion of the inscription at Ecbatana,
containing the names and titles of Xerxes. Indeed the
process is so simple that any one may repeat it. The
arrow-headed character is simply made up of the form of
an ancient arrow-head somewhat elongated—generally
moderately so, but in the Babylonian inscriptions more
extravagant in that particular. If any one desirous of
repeating the experiment will take a smooth surface of
moist clay and a piece of wood about three-quarters of an
inch square and three inches long, cut square at the ends,
he will find, on pressing the angular point into the clay,
he can reproduce any of the characters with the most per-
fect facility ; and if the surface of the clay be of sufficient
size he may reconstitute, as Mr. Tite did, the Hamadan
inscription. It is probable that in the cylinders and tab-
lets this impress was made by a metallic tool or style, and
of course on the sculptures and rock inscriptions the origi-
nal character was only imitated ; but Col. Rawlinson has
shown that the impressions on the bricks found at " Ur of
the Chaldees" were marked with the name of a king which
he Minks identical with the Chedorlaomer of Genesis, and
at less 2,000 years before Christ.
Sir R. MURCHISON rose to propose a vote of thanks to
Sir Henry Rawlinson. He stated that though the subject
was so extremely interesting, still it was one that, except
for the addresses of Colonel Rawlinson, he knew but
little ; and though these researches boasted of making
us acquainted with remote antiquity, he must claim
for geology an antiquity far greater, with handwrite
ing not less distinct than the wonderful inscriptions
of the cuneiform character. In alluding to the daring of
Colonel Rawlinson at the Rock of Behisten, he said, that
he thought no geologist, however venturous, or however
interested in fossils of such rocks, would expose himself to
similar peril in the pursuit of science, which the Geogra-
phical Society had, however, rewarded with their gold
medal in 1837. After a glowing eulogium on the Colonel's
attainments in physical geography, which had procured for
him the honourable post of chairman of that society, Sir
Roderick concluded by moving "The cordial thanks of the
meeting to Colonel Rawlinson."

Mr. TITS seconded the motion, and stated that he was
requested by the Council to do so, probably because he
had enjoyed the unusual advantage of having on former
occasions heard Sir Henry Rawlinson at much greater
length, and that he had himself become thereby so much
interested by the discoveries that he had entered upon the
study, and in a neighbouring city (Bath) had in a humble
way endeavoured to give some account of the nature and
extent of these interesting researches. He assured the
meeting of the entire accuracy of the translations which
had been read, so far as he was able to judge, and stated
that he hardly knew whether most to admire the learning,
the ingenuity, or the perseverance which had characterised
tho researches of Colonel itawlinson. He thought more

credit was due to him, because this great work had been
originated and pursued when he was a young soldier, oc-
cupied in a position of political importance, and requiring
most of his time. In a pla6 like Cheltenham he consi-
dered that any reference to the historical evidence of the
Holy Scriptures would be received with becoming atten-
tion, and that the inhabitants would feel with him that
the researches of Colonel Rawlinson were almost providen-
tial in their character, as showing, by the undersigned
coincidences of the Assyrian inscriptions, the entire truth
of the history of the chosen people of God. Mr. Tite
agreed with Colonel Rawlinson in the greater value
in this point of view of their discoveries, as compar-
ed with the hieroglyphical researches of Dr. Young
and M. Champollion, because after the exodus the
history of the Jewish , people was separated from
that of Egypt, and those records and inscriptions only fur-
nished two striking names—viz., that of Shishak, the con-
temporary of Solomon, and "Tishahak, King of Ethiopia ;"
whereas these Assyrian inscriptions gave cotemporary re-
cords, and introduced names to us as familiar from our
childhood as household words, such as Hezekiah, Senacche•
rib, Jelin, and the host of other names the Colonel had
quoted.
This morning about 160 of the members visited Ciren-
cester. The weather was most unfavourable, and the rain
fell heavily during the whole of the morning. The train
left the Great Western station, Chelteuham, at nine
o'clock, and, after stopping for about ten minutes at Ciren-
cester Junction, where Professor Beckman described the
fault occurring in the oolitic strata, reached Cirencester at
a quarter past 10. The modern town of Cirencester is
built upon the site of a Roman military:station, once of
some importance, called Corinium. It was ono of the
hiberaia, or winter quarters of the Romans, and on this
account there are frequently found many remains illustra-
ting the manners and customs of the Romans, and also
the floors, walls, and foundations of these habitations and
military defences. Several tesselated floors have from
time to time been exposed in the neighbourhocd, together "
with a large number of coins, domestic and other utensils,
weaeons, and ornaments. In 1849, while some excava-
tions were being made in the principal street of the town,
f.: the purpose of making a sewer, the workmen came
upon two floors—one 15 the other 25 feet square, running
in an oblong direction across the street. On hearing of the
discovery Earl Bathurst, with great liberality, offered to
build a suitable museum, in which the pavement and all
other records of ancient Corinium might be carefully pre.
served. The building is now completed and the pavements
have been rolaid with great taste and precision. The super-
intendence of the wcrk of removal was undertaken by the
Rev. Canon Powell and Professor Buckman, who, imme-
diately on the discovery of the pavement caused the earth to
be removed carefully to the full extent of the floor. A correct
copy was next taken of the pavement by laying down large
sheets of thin paper, and tracing the tessalce stone for stone
in the exact colours of the original. The sheets, when
finished, were joined together, and thus formed a correct
working plan from which the pavements could be relaid
with perfect accuracy. The pavements were then removed
to the museum, which is a substantial scone building at the
north-west corner of the town, on the road leading to the
Royal Agricultural College. These pavements having been
inspected by the excursion party, they proceeded to Oakley.
house, the residence of Earl-Bathurst, where they were re-
ceived by the noble earl. Here the principal object of in-
terest was the original equestrian portrait of the Duke of
Wellington, by Sir T. Lawrence, painted in 1816. Some
of the party then proceeded to visit the church, the remark-
able features of which were explained by the Rev. Canon
Powell. A visit was also made to the Royal Agricultural
College. Here the excursion party were received by the
principal of the institution, the Rev. J. Haygarth. The
experimental gar-
laboratory, the geological museum, the
den, and the farm buildings of the institution having been
visited, the party returned to Cirencester station and
reached Cheltenham at 4 o'clock.
SECTION E.—GEOGRAPHY and ETHNOLOGY.
This section will not meet to-day on account of the ex-
cursion to Cirencester. At the meeting yesterday Mr. F.
D. Hartland read a paper on Vesuvius and its eruptions,
and after an interesting description of the geography and
early eruptions of Vesuvius, which he illustrated by a most
splendid aeries of drawings and specimens of lava, proceeded
to give the following account of the last eruption :
The 54th and last eruption of Vesuvius took place on the
Ist of May, 1855. The warning of its approach was given
early in January, by the opening of a new crater at the
summit of the cone, between the old one and the city of
Naples, and directly across the route of ascent. This crater
differed from the others, insomuch as it was neither sul-
phurous in its character nor was it of the usual chimney
form. It was from 60 to 80 yards wide, and a slight smoke
issued from;its blackened sides. After its appearance the
report of an immediate eruption was spread and kept up
without intermission for many months, but on Monday,
the 30th of April, the symptoms were so apparent that the
guides declared to a party then making the ascent the num-
ber of hours it would be before it occurred. On Tuesday,
the Ist of Say, Vesuvius was invisible at Naples, and, it