1180) contains thirty lines in a space of six inches, or five lines to an inch, which is nearly as close as the type of the present volume.

This degree of closeness is exceeded on a cylinder of Asshur-bani-pal's (about B.C.

660), where the lines are six to the inch, or as near together as the type of the _Edinburgh Review_.

If the complexity of the Assyrian characters be taken into account, and if it be remembered that the whole inscription was in every ease impressed by the hand, this minuteness must be allowed to be very surprising.

It is not favorable to legibility; and the patience of cuneiform scholars has been severely tried by a mode of writing which sacrifices everything to the desire of crowding the greatest possible quantity of words into the smallest possible space.