furnishes us with a somewhat striking commentary upon the
attainments of the Greeks and Romans themselves. To refer at
length to this would be to anticipate our purpose; what now
concerns us is to recall that all along there was another nation,
or group of nations, that disputed the palm for scientific
attainments. This group of nations found a home in the valley of
the Tigris and Euphrates. Their land was named Mesopotamia by the
Greeks, because a large part of it lay between the two rivers
just mentioned. The peoples themselves are familiar to every one
as the Babylonians and the Assyrians. These peoples were of
Semitic stock--allied, therefore, to the ancient Hebrews and
Phoenicians and of the same racial stem with the Arameans and
Arabs.

The great capital of the Babylonians during the later period of
their history was the famed city of Babylon itself; the most
famous capital of the Assyrians was Nineveh, that city to which,
as every Bible- student will recall, the prophet Jonah was
journeying when he had a much-exploited experience, the record of
which forms no part of scientific annals. It was the kings of
Assyria, issuing from their palaces in Nineveh, who dominated the
civilization of Western Asia during the heyday of Hebrew history,
and whose deeds are so frequently mentioned in the Hebrew
chronicles. Later on, in the year 606 B.C., Nineveh was
overthrown by the Medes[1] and Babylonians. The famous city was
completely destroyed, never to be rebuilt. Babylon, however,
though conquered subsequently by Cyrus and held in subjection by
Darius,[2] the Persian kings, continued to hold sway as a great
world-capital for some centuries. The last great historical event
that occurred within its walls was the death of Alexander the