roud, in a bas-relief, representing the attack of a maritime city, which Mr. Layard supposes to be Tyre. Over a window I saw an Ionic volute. The Doric, the first order of Greece, has been found with architrave, entablature and triglyph, at Beni Hassan, 1400 years before Pericles. Then came the discovery of Mr. Layard, giving the type of the Ionic in Assyria some centuries at least before the building of the tombs of Alyattes and Mausolus. Here is the original on the soil of Phoenicia, and having a possible date of nine centuries before Cadmus. Now I behold the Etruscan, the original order of Italy, in the land, from which, through Lydia, we must derive that people.

Deir el Kalaah contains an inscription which, in consequence of a slight discrepancy in the inclination of a letter between a copy, sent home fifty years ago by Mr. Seetzen, and one recently made by Mr. Smith, has become the chief claim to fame of the archæological Edipus, M. Letronne. The story is a romance; I must narrate it.

Mr. Smith, the American Missionary, known by his travels in Kurdistan, and a man of extensive acquirements, examined Deir el Kalaah, and copied and sent to Paris several inseriptions, one of which was as follows:

ΡΩΝΑΝΕ ΘΗΚΑΙ

ΑΟΘΕΝΕ KNACOIO

POAOYTEXNACПA

ΠΟΘΙΝΟΝΛΙΛΙΟ

NOE KCPAOYXAAKE

ΟΝΑΝΤΙΤΥΠΟΝ

ΠΡOXCANΤΑΒΡΟ

TOIC/E POAPOMON
YA@P

On this M. Letronne set to work, and made it out satisfactorily, with the exception of the two last words. On examining, however, the Corpus Inscriptionum, he found (number 4535) the identical inscription copied fifty years ago by Seetzen, the last word but one shewing a discrepancy. The two words ran, in English letters, Ierodromon hudor, which mean, "holy running water." Such an epithet no where else occurs, and in it there seemed to be no sense. But in Mr. Smith's copy the first letter, I, was inclined; so M. Letronne concluded that, instead of an I, it was a part of an A, the rest of it having been effaced by time, and proposed to read the word, Aerodromon, which would mean "borne through the air." He consequently restored the inscription in this fashion:

(Τή) λοθεν ἐκ νήσοιο Ρόδου, τέχνασμα ποθινόν
"Αμμονος κεραού χάλκεον ἀντίτυπον,

Προχέοντα βροτοῖς ἀεροδρόμον ὕδωρ.

and translated it thus:

". . . . has dedicated (this monument) brought from a far country, from the island of Rhodes, desired object of art, image of horned Ammon, pouring to mortals water borne through the

The inscription is of the second or third century; and it refers to a bronze work of art, through which the water had originally poured, but which has now disappeared. The discovery of M. Letronne did not end with the word: he saw more in it. He said to himself, "water borne through the air must have been carried by an aqueduct; tracing this conduit, we are sure to find a monument of this description." He therefore wrote to M. Calliar, a French engineer officer, then surveying Syria, desiring him to repair to the spot, and telling him that he was sure to find there a stupendous aqueduct. Nobody had heard of anything of the sort; but M. Calliar relying on his Teucer, repaired thither, after some casting about and inquiries, was at length gratified by the sight of the rival of the Pont du Garde, striding across the valley of Beyrout. On a former occasion I came upon the same monument no less unexpectedly. His amazement at the sight may be imagined; as also the terms of the annoucement of the discovery, and its reception by the learned throughout Europe. The whole story is told in the "Revue Archéologique," numbers for May, November, and December,

1846.

However pressed for time I could not omit the inspection of this inscription. What was my astonishment when I read, as clear as chisel could cut, and as perfectly as indurated limestone could preserve, the word, Ierodromon! I had to rub my eyes several times before I could trust them. So this chain of

proof, worked out by critical acuteness, and leading from the filling up of a letter in Paris, to the discovery of a signal monument in Syria, was, after all, but a mistake.

it to

up

The aqueduct is in a deep valley below, at the distance of several hours. The water of this aqueduct was not poured out where it spanned the valley, but at Beyrout; consequently any inscription belonging to it must have been at Beyrout. It is not to be carry supposed that any one would take and Deir el Kalaah. The inscription belongs to the water at Deir el Kalaah, not to the aqueduct bringing another water to Beyrout. This conduit makes its way not through the air, but underground; the word 'Aɛpodpóμov applied to it would be ridiculous. If, as I have said, this water rose through its pipe, by a principle unknown to the Greeks (being to them one of the ancient works which they referred to Semiramis), then indeed the epithet spódpoμov, sacred-flowing-moved by a divine impulse-would be applicable, and would moreover prove that the water had been so raised to its level. Otherwise there would have been no object in boring the stones, in having them of such great strength, or in bevel-ling them into each other, with so much care.

The discovery of M. Letronne, to which we appeared to owe the knowledge of a monument, amounted to the effacing of the record of a science. This is the most beautiful example I know of European criticism. He could not say, "I do not know

the meaning of Ierodromon." If he could have said so, the word would have remained for some one else, to discover through it, that the ancients, not the Greeks and Romans, knew that water inclosed, found its own level.

These very stone pipes might now be employed to bring, without repairing the aqueduct, water into Beyrout.

* The Terrazi at Constantinople bring the water from the Bends at Belgrade, by a similar process.