shown in the astronomical figures on boundary stones. He asked for information as to the substitution of the constellation Libra for that of the Altar in the Zodiac. He believed that the modern zodiacal Libra was spurious and was introduced by Egyptian influences.

Mr. M. L. ROUSE said that at the great Palestine Exhibition in 1907 a seed-plough of the same kind as that portrayed in these most ancient inscriptions was driven by a Bedouin upon a model field; in surprise he asked the driver whether wheat was not usually sown broadcast in the East, but received the answer that many other seeds were sown broadcast, but wheat was always sown through this leather hopper and tube set behind the ploughshare.

Until that evening he had not known which of the two great towers lying respectively in the heart of the ruins of Babylon and at Birs Nimrud was the original Tower of Babel, the former corresponding to E-Sagila, or Temple of the Lofty Head, the latter to Ê-Zida, or Temple of Life; he now knew that it was the

former.

He noted that according to this latest found Deluge Story the God Ea was constantly served by Ziugiddu (or Noah) before the Deluge, and since, in the Gisdhubar story it was Ea who warned the good man to prepare the ship of deliverance, was not the name Ea really a variant of Jah, the shorter alternative Hebrew name for the true God?

Colonel VAN SOMEREN urged that if the Tower of Babylon was only 200 feet high, it could not fulfil the Biblical description of "reaching up to heaven." There was no verb in the Hebrew at all. He had read that the real meaning was that the Tower was an observatory; perhaps with a planisphere or map of the heavens laid out at the top? Could the Lecturer enlighten them on this point? · The Rev. F. A. JONES observed that the period chiefly dealt with by Dr. Pinches was an intensely interesting one, it being so close to that represented in Scripture as immediately following the Flood. It was remarkable how entirely the account of Berosus was confirmed, even in its chronology, by the contemporary inscriptions already deciphered, and we were probably on the eve of discoveries which would elucidate the strange period he gave as 33,091 years, which read as days was 91 years, and so read made his chronology practically the same as that of Genesis.

The ruins at Nippur were reported by Haines as going down to virgin soil 33 feet below the present level of the plain, and Mr. Jones said he could only understand that on the assumption that the level of the plain was raised by a flood; if so the lowest Ziggurat was antediluvian: a conclusion to which several other facts in that connection pointed.

The Rev. A. IRVING, B.A., D.Sc., would only detain the meeting at that late hour with one or two brief remarks (suggested by his own recent work*) on the most valuable paper that they had just listened to. One point that especially struck him was the bold perspective, in which it tended to place Abraham as an historical personage, in the face of much speculation of late years as to the mythical character of the Patriarchs. He enquired if the term "cattle" (p. 179) included the horse, that animal being never mentioned in the Genesis enumerations of the possessions of the Patriarch, used mostly for war purposes (chiefly by the Egyptians) in those Pentateuchal times [and ignored in the Tenth Commandment]. Might it be possible that the Babylonian term "blackheaded" (p. 168) had some reference to traditions or survivals of the negroid (?) Neolithic people of the Grimaldi Race? ‡ And was it possible to fill in hypothetically the gap (p. 169) so as to read "denizens of [the caves]"? He desired to associate himself with Dr. Pinches' "contention" in the paragraph: "How early the date original scheme" (pp. 170, 171). It seems to suggest an Abrahamic inspiration for the Creation Story of Genesis!

On the motion of the CHAIRMAN, the Meeting returned a hearty vote of thanks to the Lecturer, and to the Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, who had furnished some of the slides by which the Lecture had been illustrated.

The LECTURER thanked the Meeting for the appreciative attention which had been given him, and for the cordial vote of thanks. In reply to the first question, he would say that towers like that

*See Reports of the British Association for the years 1910, 1911, 1913. + Cf. Job xxxix, 19 ff. The wild horse was known long before, and had probably been domesticated by the Neolithic men. Its immediate ancestry dates back to the Pliocene Period, in which remains of several species of Equus are well known.

As described by Professor Marcellin Boule from the Grimaldi grottoes near Mentone. Any clue, which seems to bring us on Biblical lines into touch with pre-Adamic races, is of interest.

of Babylon were not rare in Babylonia and Assyria, and they probably varied in size with the importance of the place and the consequent opulence or poverty of the religious foundation therein. Answering Dr. Coles, he stated that it seemed to him hardly likely that Libra was originally the picture of an altar, though altars were found on the boundary-stones. In the only place where the name was spelled out it appeared as Zibanit, which was regarded as the word for "scales." (As this is of late date, it may have been introduced, as suggested, by the Egyptians.) In reply to Mr. Rouse, he was glad of the testimony that the seeding-device, of which he had shown a picture, was still used in the country. The lecturer regretted not having made himself clear as to Ê-sagila and E-zida. É-sagila was not the tower, but the great temple of Merodach connected with the Tower in Babylon, which seems to have been called "The House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth." Ê-zida was the "Everlasting House" at Borsippa, and the tower in connection with it was called Ê-urwe-imina-an-ki, "the House of the 7 regions of Heaven and Earth," symbolizing the seven planets (including the sun and moon). The meaning of Ê-sagila was "head-raising," not, apparently, in the sense of a tall structure, but as the place where the people, or the hostile gods of old (see p. 188), were comforted-"lifted up" from their downcast state. Both Ê-sagila and Ê-zida had been restored by Nebuchadrezzar. Mr. Rouse had suggested that Ea (the name of the god of the waters and of deep wisdom) was a variant of Jah (or its original form); but this the lecturer hesitated to confirm, notwithstanding that his friend, Professor Fritz Hommel (Journal of the Victoria Institute, 1895, p. 36) had already pointed out the likeness. (Naturally there is also the question of an ancient identification of two names originally distinct to be considered.) Colonel Van Someren was right as to the Tower of Babylon not being very high (see p. 192, note to p. 184). A tower, whose top was in the heavens," simply meant, as has already been recognized, a very high tower. Whether there was a planisphere at the top or not the lecturer could not say, but he thought it unlikely, though small planispheres of baked clay existed. The house at the top was the abode of the god Merodach. Replying to the Rev. F. A. Jones, the antiquity of the ruins at Niffer had been estimated by an examination of the accumulations as dating from about 10,000

years ago, but this was naturally open to correction, and the high date of Nabonidus for Narâm-Sin (3,200 years before his time) is regarded by Assyriologists as being about 1,000 years too early. Referring to Dr. Irving's suggestion that the "black-headed people" had their origin in traditions of negroid (?) neolithic cavedwellers, the lecturer said that was a matter of opinion. "Men of the black head" was a description of the Babylonians themselvesin contradistinction thereto certain Gutian (Median) slaves were described as being "fair." The word translated "denizens" (nammasse)-see p. 169-occurs in the fifth line of the bilingual story of the Creation, apparently as indicating dwellers in cities; and it is noteworthy that the Sumerian equivalent is written adam-see the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1891, pp. 402 and 403. In early lists of domestic animals asses were often referred to, but never horses, which seem to have become fairly well known to the Babylonians 2,000 years B.C. (The tablets referred to on p. 179 are much later than this, but there is no mention of horses.)

The Meeting adjourned at 6.30 p.m:

LATER NOTE BY THE LECTURER.

Since the writing of the note on Ziugiddu (p. 191), Dr. S. Langdon has published his reading of the name,* which he gives as Zid-udgiddu, for Ud-zid-giddu, and translates "long is the breath of life." This is a fuller transcription of the name as I have read it (following Poebel). The rendering "being of everlasting day," however (p. 191), seems to me to be worthy of consideration.

* Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, June, 1914, p. 190.

556TH ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING,

HELD IN THE ROOMS OF THE INSTITUTE ON MONDAY, MAY 4TH, 1914, AT 4.30 P.M.

THE REV. H. J. R. MARSTON, M.A., TOOK THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read and confirmed. The SECRETARY announced the election of the two following Associates:-Mr. John Wood and Mr. Francis Chatillon Danson.

The CHAIRMAN then introduced Prof. F. F. Roget, Lecturer on English Language and Literature in the University of Geneva, and called upon him to deliver his Address on "Frederic Godet, the greatest of Swiss theologians after Calvin."

FREDERIC GODET, SWISS DIVINE, AND TUTOR TO FREDERICK THE NOBLE. BY PROF. F. F. ROGET.

REDERIC GODET was born in 1812, and died in 1900, when eighty-eight years old.

The length of his life, and the period of the nineteenth century over which it extended, made him throughout the span of those years a contemporary of Ernest Naville, the "spiritualistic" philosopher and divine of Geneva, whose portrait, course of life, and doctrine, we brought before the Victoria Institute, two years ago in the same month of May.

A complete picture of the philosophic thought, emanating, in conjunction with theology, from the French-speaking parts of Switzerland in the nineteenth century, would demand that we should add to Naville and Godet their compeers Alex. Vinet, Charles Secretan, François Roget and Frederic Amiel. This we hope to do with the help of time. We believe that there is in London an editor who understands the importance of the contribution to philosophy and theology of the Protestant Churches in Romance Switzerland, and is prepared to publish, for the benefit of the English-reading public, such accounts as those which are now being placed before you.

I wish particularly to thank the Victoria Institute for the facility thus given me, which I am confident they will have no occasion to regret.

The Protestants of Romance Switzerland are in every way akin to the English and Scotch Protestants. The national