The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1875-05-13
STORY OF THE DELUGE.
NoAFs UNFORTUNATE HABIT.
THE REMARKABLE DISCOVERIES OF
Mr.. SMITH.

THE REMARKABLE DISCOVERIES OF
Mr.. SMITH.
INTERESTING PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE
TRANSLATION OF THE AsSYRIAN TABLETS
IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM-NEWLY DIsCOy-
Erred FACTS ABOUT THE FLOOD AND NOAH,
TOGETHER WITH SOME LIGHT ON THE HIS
TORY OF THE SENATOR FROM MAINE AND
THE SETTLEMENT OF BR0oKLYN-A TERRI
BILE TALE UNFoLDED.
The Boston correspondent of the New
York Sun writes concerning the develop
ments resultant from the discovery of the
key to the mysterious inscriptions on the
tablets unearthed st the ruins of ancient
Assyrian cities in the Orient: Mr.. Jacob
Rounds, of London, one of the assistant
curators of the British Museum, in private
letter to a distinguished Orientalist
of this city, gives some interest
ing particulars regarding the progress
which has been made in the arrangement
and translation of the sculptured tablets
and lateres coctiles. brought from Assyra
and Chaldsa by Mr.. George Smith. The re-
suits of the past three or four months are
gratifying in the extreme. The work
which was begun three quarters of a cen
tury ago by GrOteiend, and pursued by
archaeologists like Rlsk, st. Martin, Klap-
roth, Oppert and the indsfatigable Rawlin-
SOD, 6acl OF WnOm was SdtlSueu III ne car
ried il forward single step, has been
pushed far and fast by Mr.. George Smith
and his scholarly associates. The Assyrio-
Babylonian cuneiforms, the third and
most complicated branch of the tri-
logy, may fairly bs said to have found their
E1ipus. The riddles of Accad and of
Sumir are read at last. The epigrsphs on
tablets dug from the earth and rubbish OF
the Ninevite mounds are now translated by
Mr.. George Smith as readily as Professor
Whitney translates Greek, or
fifth form schoolboy the fable of the
years since the learned White de-
clared that these photographic characters
arranged so neatly upon the slabs of gray
alabaster, or the carefully prepared surface
of clay-like specimen arrow heads in the
museum of some ancient war department.
were entirely without alphab9tic signifi-
canoe, mere whimsical ornaments, or per-
haps the trail of worms. But their exegesis
has been perfected. The mounds of MIN
rod, and Kouyunjik, and Khorsabad, and
Nebbi YuDus nave yielded up their
precious treasures, aud are now revealing,
page by page,
THE EARLY HISTORY OF OUR GLOBE.
Mr.. Smith and Mr.. Rounds ara both con.
firmed in the belief, first entertained by
Westergaarde, that the cuneiform character
is closely akin to the Egyptian demotic; and
four hundred signs, some syllable, SONS
phonatic, and some Biographies of the
most complicated and arbitrary nature. As
already intimated, the description which Mr..
Smith and his co-labOrers have deciphered
are in the primitive or Babylonian charac-
ter, which Is much more obscure than either
OF its successors and notifications,
the so called Persian and Median cunei.
The slabs OF the greatest interest and i'm
pOrtance were thoae found buried in the
famous KOuyunjiktnOund. first opened in
1913 by NJ. Paul Emile Botta, aud subse-
quently exported by Lsyard himself. TIE
insert ptoDs are mostly upon clay, and seem
to have constituted the walls of the great
library of AssurbaDipal in Sennacherib's
palace. SennacheriO was probably a mon
arch of a nautical turn OF mind, for large
portion OF the inscriptions illustrate
the history of the flood and the
voyage of Noah, or of Nysb, his Assyrian
counterpart, who also corresponds, in some
particulars, with the Deucslion of the Gre
clan myths. Piece by piece, and fragment
by fragment, the diluvian narrative has beeu
worked out until it stands complete, a dis
tinct episode in the vast epic which Mr..
George Smith is engaged in reconstructing
Mr. Rounds may certainly be p rdoned for
the naturally enthusiastic terms in which
he speaks of these labors. And well may
he be proud. These mon In the British
Museum are successfully compiling, brick
by brick, what they claim to be a complete
encyclopedias o. sacred and proisne his
tory, beginning with
THE CONCEPTION OF MATTER,
and the birth of mind. Their extraordinary
researches have placed them upon pedes
tai oil authority, from which they nov
grayely pronounce their approval of the
Holy Scriptures, and even ssoop to pat
Moses on the head, and to tell him tina, his
inspired version was very nearly correct.
So graphic is the account of the adventures
of Nyab, or Noah as ne may more conven-
iently be called; clear is the synopsis
of his method of navigation; so startling
are the newly discovered facts regarding
the ark and its passengers, that
1 am tempted to avail myself OF
the kind permission Of the Boston savant
who has the honor to be Mr.. Rounds es-
teemed correspondents. and to transcribe
sa~nowhat ~ aataii, for the benefit Of your
readers, the extraordinary story of the Hood
rs told by the Assyrian cuneiforms-crypto-
grams for four thousand years until the
genius OF a Smith unveiled the mystery OF
their meaning. Mr.. Smith sscertsins from
these inscriptions that when Noah began to
build his - pxQpbasX- a del1 euu5he