The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-04-28
Stories from Assyria-The Press md
Scientific Research.

The enterprise Of the press in taking the
place of governments for the prosecution Of
scientific and archaeological research is one of
the great signs of the times It is but the
other day that Mr.. Robert Lowe, Chancellor
of the British Exchequer, refused body of
English scientists who asked an appropria-
ton to settle some Typographical questions re-
garding the plain of Homers Troy. He
wanted his surplus at the end of the year, as
o necessary tribute to John Bulls irrational
bumptiousness, and, besides. he had no
power to tax the grumbing British rate
payer for the purpose of locating the
ashes Of the sulky Achilles There is
no necessity to characterize this action
of the British official. His apologists
in the heavy English weeklies plead that Mr.
Lowe is passionate lover of Greece himself
but they tacitly admit that he is, above all, o
Chancellor Treasury Watchdog" This
is sufficient, in all conscience Private mu-
nifcence was long the Offset of governmental
carelessness or parsimony on these points, and
now the press, with its matchless ability to
disseminate what the savant has toiled to
learn, steps in and becomes the friend, the
patron. The long-buried story of the Troad
will be told from the mute but eloquent debris
and stones that lie where stood Neptune 8
wall and Pergamus Of Troy, whether govern
ments aid or not and Homer's verse will be
read with awakened interest by the supple
mented aid
Our English contemporary, the London
Daily Telegraph, has taken up the subject
of the cuneiform writings in the ruins of the
ancient cities Of Assyria. The excavations of
M. Botta and Mr. Layard in the mounds Of
Nimrood and Kouyunjik laid bare magnificent
glimpses of the departed glory of Nineveh;
but to the decipherers of the strange arrow
head hieroglyphics remained the greater task
of bringing distinctly to our imaginations the
life that circulated so many centuries ago
around the great palaces guarded by the
strange winged bulls. The work in this de-
partment of Sir Henry Rawlinson has won
its need of praise, and a worldwide applause
has greeted the labors of Mr.. George Smith.
This gentleman translation Of cuneiform
inscription in the British Museum detailing
the Assyrian story of the Deluge is fresh in
the minds of all antiquarians The tablets
from which he made the TRANSACTIONS were
merely specimens of the strange characters,
and it was known that thousands vet remained
untouched in the mound tombs wherein Law
buried the sun-dried brick and alabaster
palaces of Assyria and Babylonia, in fact, all
through Mesopotamia or the valleys of the
Tigris and Euphrates. Our London contem-
porary chivalrously came to the rescue of the
scientist and Mr. George Smith became its
special archaeological commissioner to Assyria.
In last December he read his paper
on the Deluge before the Biblical
Archaeological Society, and to-day we
learn through brief special despatch from
London that Mr.. Smith has already unearthed
eighty tablets throwing valuable light on the
chronology and names of the Assyrian kings,
many of them hitherto unknown. A book of
Assvrian proverbs. too. has been found. aud