guidance of fact, may of course with the greatest ease compose plans
of a charming completeness. A rigid adherence to existing data will
produce, it is to be feared, a somewhat meagre and fragmentary result;
but most persons will feel that this is one of the cases where the maxim
of Hesiod applies--"the half is preferable to the whole."

[Illustration: PAGE 182]

The one identification which may be made upon certain and indeed
indisputable evidence is that of the Kasr mound with the palace built
by Nebuchadnezzar. The tradition which has attached the name of Kasr or
"Palace" to this heap is confirmed by inscriptions upon slabs found on
the spot, wherein Nebuchadnezzar declares the building to be his "Grand
Palace." The bricks of that part of the ruin which remains uncovered
bear, one and all, the name of this king; and it is thus clear that
here stood in ancient times the great work of which Berosus speaks as
remarkable for its height and splendor. If a confirmation of the fact
were needed after evidence of so decisive a character, it would be found
in the correspondence between the remains found on the mound and the
description left us of the "greater palace" by Diodorus. Diodorus
relates that the walls of this edifice were adorned with colored
representations of hunting scenes; and modern explorers find that the
whole soil of the mound, and especially the part on which the fragment
of ruin stands, is full of broken pieces of enamelled brick, varied in
hue, and evidently containing portions of human and animal forms.

But if the Kasr represents the palace built by Nebuchadnezzar, as is
generally allowed by those who have devoted their attention to the
subject, it seems to follow almost as a certainty that the Amran mound
is the site of that old palatial edifice to which the erection