New-York tribune., 1873-02-11
4 NEW FIELD FoR J0URNALISM.

The enterprise of Mr. James Gordon Ben
nett in sending an expedition into the heart
of Africa to search for a British traveller
whose fate had long enlisted the sympathies
of the civilized world, has already borne fruit.
An English paper emulOus Of the glory which
The HeraIds achievement reflected upon
American journalism, has undertaken an adj
venture somewhat similar in character, if not
quite so costly and original. Among the an
tiquities discovered some years ago at Nine
veh and deposited in the British Museum,
were a number of inscribed tablets from the
royal hbrary,-the books, so to speak, on
which were recorded, twenty-five centuries
ago, the records of the Assyrian kingdom and
whatever was known in that day of the pre-
yious history of the world. The best modern
scholars have devoted to these cuneifOrm in
scriptions much patient study, and their
labOrs have been rewarded with the
most important results. No discOv-
cry, however, among these remarka-
BILE remains has excited more interest
than the recent finding, by Mr.. George
Smith, among the tablets taken from the
library of King Assurbanipal atINineveh (B. c.
$500, remarkable Chaldean account of the
deluge-remarkable not only for its resem-
blance to the Scripture narrative, but for GER
tain strange discrepancies, which we need not
now pause TO indicate. Learning that there
is a probability of the existence of many SIM
liar records among the still unexplored ruins
of Assyria, the prcpretors of The London Daily
Telegraph have sent out Mr. Smith to prose-
cute a thorough search at their expense. The
Government has given Mr.. Smith six months
leave of absence from the Museum, and is to
continue his salary during the expedition. The
Daily Telegraph pays all the expenses OF the
Journey and transportation OF the ancient mon
uments that may be discovered, offering to
depost these in the British Museum while its
own columns will be enriched by Mr. Smiths
letters.
Newspapers are getting to be much more
than mere transcripts of the news and gossip
of the day. They are pioneers III learned ex
ploratiOn they are foremost in geographical
and historical discovery; they are the teachers
of social science. They are no longer satisfied
with disseminating the knowledge laboriously
collected by Swans by travellers, by expert
menters in natural philosophy; they must
pursue their own investigations, and send
their agents into all the half-explOred fields of
science and adventure. The reporter of to-
day is the adventurer who penetrates the
desert aud the jungle the scholar who searches
for relics of the forgotten past, the courier
who bears the news of victory to courts and
congresses across a wilderness and through
hostile armies, the detective who prizes
into public abuses and discovers hidden
wrongs, the pioneer who throws new countries
open to the world, the philanthropist who un-
bars the door of the torture-chamber the
chemist who detects adulteratiOn i'll the spice
box, the inspector who seizes false weights
and measures, the auditor who exposes q theft
in the public treasury. Journalism busies
itself now with everything that affects the
public welfare. 1t trenches upon the province
once sacred to the scholar, and supplies the
defects of an Inefficient government Year by
year it's ambition becomes larger, its purposes
more beneGcent, and its means more abun-
dant; and we can hardly doubt that it is
destined IN very short time to be the fore