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of his kingdom was Babel." In his new volume, "The Chaldean Account of Genesis," Mr. George Smith rightly recognizes Nimrod (or Izdubar, as the name is phonetically transliterated) as the chief hero and central figure of the Babylonian myths, and his travels and exploits fill a large part of the book. Indeed, the famous Deluge tablet is but an episode in the history of Nimrod, to whom Xisuthrus, the Assyrian Noah, tells the story how he built the ark, how he gathered all animals into it, how he escaped the flood, how he landed on the Mountains of the East, how he sent out the raven, how he landed and sacrificed to the gods, and how he received the promise that the waters should not again destroy the race of man.

Fortunately, the stories of Nimrod are so fully told, that it is easy to recognize him in the sculptures and on the figured seals. He was a favorite with the makers of seals, and numerous representations of him are preserved, although, as we believe, Mr. Smith has been the first to identify his figure. He is represented as a sort of Hercules performing impossible feats, at one time struggling alone with a lion, at another holding and strangling a lion under his arm, at another lifting a lion by his hind leg, at another holding a lion over his head, and at another swinging a lion in each hand. Sometimes he is accompanied by his friend the satyr-like Heabani, who is, perhaps, performing some similar exploit in slaying a bull. Mr. Smith gives but four of these, one of which is of great interest as representing Nimrod, not in his usual style as a hunter, but on his visit with Heabani to Xisuthrus, who is seated in the ark with his wife. It is of extreme interest that Nimrod's features are so peculiar that they can always be instantly recognized, which is remarkable, considering that the features on the monuments are generally so uniform and conventional. It may be interesting to those who have never seen a portrait of Nimrod, and whose knowledge of him has been confined to that gained from the record of Moses, to learn that he had thick lips, a rather flat nose, high cheek bones, three love curls on each side of his face, and a not very long beard curled at the end, although the later figures, such as that figured on the cover of this volume, have lengthened and curled the beard after the more modern Assyrian style.

This volume is by no means given up entirely to the story of Nimrod. It is of extreme value as collecting, for the first time, all that is yet known of the Babylonian notions of the creation of the world and their earlier myths. Notwithstanding their fragmentary state, they prove that it was no mistake of Moses that the Jewish race had its origin in Chaldea. Not only the story of the Flood, but all the other stories of the first nine chapters of Genesis had their counterpart in Chaldea. We find that before the Creation there was chaos. There are fragments that indicate the creation on successive days of the heavenly bodies, of animals and of man, each of which creations is, in its turn, pronounced good. We have, then, the stories of wars in heaven, of Bel fighting against the dragon, the great Spirit

of Evil, who is generally represented as a griffin with four eagle feet, a body covered with scales, and the head of a lion. We have, also, a part of the story, unfortunately much mutilated, of the fall of man, they are called "Adamites," or the dark race, in distinction from the white race, who are, perhaps, the "Sons of God" of Genesis, deceived by the dragon, and of the curse pronounced on him and the dragon. It is a pity that we have not the address complete, made by the divinity to the first pair after their creation, as Moses has failed to record it. According to the Babylonian account, the man was first addressed as to his duties, partly as follows:

"Every day thou shalt invoke thy God;
Sacrifice and the voice of prayer

Thou shalt carry in reverence to thy God.
Whatsoever shall be suitable for divinity,
Supplication, humility, and the bowing of the head,
Thou shalt present to him and shalt bring tribute;
And in the fear of God thou shalt be holy."

but it includes trust of God and trust of friends. The rest is too much mutilated to translate correctly, The address to the woman is even more imperfect, but it contains so many references to her beauty, that Milton could well say:

"Fairest of all her daughters, Eve."

The following two lines are all that is clear:

"To the lord of thy beauty thou shalt be faithful; Thou shalt not approach him to do evil."

Mr. Smith thinks that he has found a fragment of the story of the Tower of Babel, but it is so extremely doubtful, that we should hesitate to admit it, especially as Berosus gives no parallel story, and as in this of Mr. Smith's the gods are represented as destroying in the night what was built during the day. But though this is doubtful, the Deluge story is so complete, that it proves, beyond all cavil, that the Jews and the Babylonians obtained their cosmogonies from a common source. Only this is everywhere noticeable, that the Mosaic story is simple and credible, while the Chaldean story is almost everywhere distorted with tales of frightened gods and compos| ite monsters, and all the coarse incidents of a faith brutalized by polytheism.

Mr. Smith is a prolific writer. His "Assyrian Discoveries" bore date of 1875, and between that volume and this he has issued not only the fourth folio volume of the British Museum Cuneiform Inscriptions, but also "The Assyrian Canon," which gives the fullest accessible account of the correspondence between Assyrian and Jewish history. The present work, though it contains considerable matter that was in his "Assyrian Discoveries," brings out fully the relation of Assyrian mythology to the Jewish faith, and is even more valuable, in its place, than "The Assyrian Canon," for scholars can find nearly all the historical coincidences in French and German volumes, while these stories of the gods and heroes have nearly all been the discovery of Mr. Smith.

"Pray for the Holy Spirit.” *

THIS book is not controversial, but is intended for the use of evangelical Christians of every name. Its publication is well-timed to the wide-spread revival of religion, and its general circulation would do much to prevent or cure the excess and fanaticism which sometimes mar revival movements. The very title of the treatise breathes the spirit of exhortation which animates the whole book, and intimates the practical nature of the discussion; yet the author has remembered that effective exhortation is founded on reason, and true practice on principle.

The Christian is first urged to seek the Holy Spirit for himself-but why? Seventeen answers are given in as many brief chapters of a few pages each. The Christian is then urged to seek the Holy Spirit for the Church and the world-but for what? Eight answers are returned in as many chapters, equally brief. The author's style is plain to a fault, | an illustration or metaphor occurring with provoking rareness. For this defect we have compensation in clear, terse statement, and rapid movement from point to point. We know of no book better adapted to become a manual for Christians on the subject it handles.

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Social Science.

PERHAPS the two questions of most immediate practical concern which have been under investigation by the American Social Science Association for the past year are "The Health of Pupils in the Public Schools" and "Homes for the People in American Cities." A two-days' conference took place at Detroit on the former question, which has also been since debated at the meeting of the American Public Health Association in Baltimore last November, and at the Social Science meeting in Boston, January 12th, 1876. Most important statistics and general information have been collected concerning health in the public schools, which will soon be published in the 'Journal of Social Science." A full report on "Homes for the People in American Cities was read at the British Social Science Congress in Brighton last October, based upon a paper on the same topic by Robert Jacob Paine, Jr., of Boston, read at Detroit last May. A still more extended report was made at the Boston Social Science meeting in January. In all three, much attention was given to the remarkably successful "Building Associations" of Philadelphia, described in the February SCRIBNER by Mr. Charles Barnard. At the Philadelphia meeting of May 31 above mentioned, this branch of the question will again be brought forward, and the working people of Philadelphia themselves | will be invited to send a delegation to state the exact present condition of the Building Associations to which so many of them belong, and by the aid of which they have become the owners of their homesteads, to an extent unknown in any other great city of the world. The day devoted by the American Social Science Association to the consideration of

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this question in Philadelphia will be one of the most interesting to the economist and the philanthropist

of all those which the Centennial season will witness. The death of Dr. S. G. Howe, occurring but a few days before the Boston Social Science meeting in January, was noticed there with appropriate mention of Dr. Howe's great services to mankind. He was one of the half-dozen gentlemen who issued the call for the first meeting of the American Social Science Association in 1865, and at the time of his death, as he had been for years before, he was one of its directors. At the public services, held in his honor at the Boston Music Hall, February 8th, a letter was read from his contemporary, the poet Bryant, ranking Dr. Howe, very justly, with Virgil's

"Lovers of our race, whose labors gave

Their names a memory that defies the grave;" and the poets Holmes and Ellery Channing also paid their tribute to his heroic and generous nature. It is by such men as he that the work of Social Science in America has been farthest carried forward.

Ninth Exhibition of the Water-Color Society.

THOUGH it is as difficult to compare two annual picture collections as it is to measure the relative severity of two winters from memory, we believe it is safe to place the exhibition of 1876 above that of last year.

A striking particular of the exhibition was the group of large pictures by native painters in the North Room, testifying to the growing importance of water-color. Of these elaborate attempts, Mr. Edwin A. Abbey's "The Stage Office," though the smallest, must be rated in some regards the highest. Though a little timid and “stretched," the conception was happy, and the carrying out very honest and pleasant. The touch of romance in the palecheeked young woman, with her ancient flowerfigured carpet-bag, and the pompous, investigating air of the stage-driver, make a piquant contrast, which has not been exaggerated. The intellectual point of view which the picture indicated, reminds us a little of Tissot, though it has not that French thoroughness and precision so rarely developed outside of Paris. Mr. Bellows's "Sunday Afternoon in New England" is evidently a success, judged by the artist's standard, though we see in it only a painstaking, conventional Statement, a platitude very agreeably modulated. Such pictures undoubtedly fill a place in the scale of artistic culture, and it is some satisfaction to see them done with such evenness as Mr. Bellows sustains. Of Mr. Tiffany's "Shop in Switzerland” much might be said in praise of the technique; but the effect of the scene, and the memory of its spotty lights, and too widely dispersed and detailed interest, are simply rasping, and mark the work as a very unsatisfactory one. Mr. S. Colman's "Mosque of Sidi Hallui," and his "Cathedral at Quimper," are remarkably good portrayals of buildings in a pictorial style.

Little can be said of Mr. W. T. Richards's and Mr. Bricher's sea-views, or of Mr. R. Swain Gifford's Eastern scenes, because they are very much the

same that these painters have been producing for some time past, although Mr. Gifford's work, always strong and assured, seems to grow in interest. Mr. McEntee's "Autumn Song," though heavy in its rendering of the figure, is poetical; and Winslow Homer's "A Penny for Your Thoughts," quietly charming. The latter's "Glimpse from a Railroad Train," of little purple boys bathing in a pool of pure gold water, is one of those curiosities of color which only Mr. Homer picks up,-and worth preserving, though not a picture. Mr. Smillie's "Scrub Race on the Plains" is also hardly a picture, being rather panoramic in effect; but, though meager in coloring, it contained some drawing of horses, full of energy and motion, if not entirely successful. Mr. Henry Farrer keeps at his old post, we observe, faithfully recording his semi-pensive, semi-prosaic im- | pressions of mountain, sea-shore, and ancient homestead, the wonder being that he can so closely graze the poetic element in landscape without ever fairly seizing it. Mr. Magrath comes out strong this year, and deserves credit for his "Galway Girl." What this painter lacks in lightness and grace is compensated for by richness of color and apparent local truth. We cannot omit the names of Tryon, Nicoll, and Falconer; the latter is developing several sides of a serious and sensitive talent, and we should like to urge him further in the direction of his East River view, and of his little street scene at night, which promise a new and distinct vein. Another name of promise is that of Charles Parsons, of "Harper's Monthly," who contributes a little birch grove full of vivid tints. Miss Bridges, of sea-bird and thistle-down fame, sends the same subjects that have already won her praise for their freshness and daintiness. It is a pity that the flower-painters always come in such numbers, and so many of them without the right artistic insight, for they throw discredit on their more skillful sisters; but we may single out from the mass Miss G. F. Eddy's "Gladiolus " (No. 181); Miss E. Booth's rich cluster of "Wild Flowers (190); some very beautiful 'Drummond Phlox," by Miss Eddy again (No. 8); and "Heartsease," by Miss M. R. Oakey.

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The "black and white" room wore a promising look, and, in fact, there was much to be studied there; the things that will be best remembered are perhaps the group of heads and of landscapes by Mr. W. M. Hunt and Miss Knowlton, of Boston; a drawing of a boy's head, by a pupil of Mr. Hunt; a charming landscape, by Miss Oakey; some etchings by Détaille, and others by Peter Moran and Edwin Forbes-the latter, crude but truthful memory-scenes from army-life ;-together with James E. Kelly's lurid and suggestive “Vigil," after a battle in the late civil war. Of course, we do not forget George Cruickshank's characteristic study of "Lick Sticks," though we see that we have forgotten to mention Mr. La Farge's "Bishop Hatto," and "Trionfo d'Amore,"-two wood drawings which give with great salience two very different strains of feeling of which this artist is a master.

A good many of the most skillful pieces were the work of foreign painters. The Roman school came

forth in all the pomp that a prevailing fashion attaches to it, so that the walls were sprinkled thick with "Spanish Type " by Morguera, and “Oriental Type" by Perea (a palpable Hibernian model, undisguisedly gross in sentiment), an "Interrupted Letter" by Riccardi, here, and a glowing" Florist" by Vibert, there. "An Arab," by Corlandi, was a remarkably sinewy piece of modeling; and “The Sentinel," by Clairin, certainly offered a vigorous sort of defense of this kind of picture. Many spectators, however, must have felt-and they cannot be blamed for it-that these painters go too much in single file; where one steps, the other follows, and they all have a passion for isolating a figure, crowding color into it, suppressing the surroundings into extreme sketchiness, and then abandoning the subject to you. The single figure starts out with marvelous distinctness, and these artists seem to have opened a new chapter of color; but, after all, their forced intensity appears to proceed from a secret sterility of the imagination. Fortuny's “On the Terrace" (East Room) illustrates another side, or perhaps the extreme of the movement. Here everything is projected upon the most ultra-suggestive plan. There are a balustraded terrace, some plants, a group of ladies, and two or three bowing courtiers in red or black; but all as dim and delicate as a spider's web, over which a handful of varicolored pollen-dust has been sprinkled. To quite enter into it, one must imagine himself extremely near-sighted, or half close his eyes, or by some other tortuous mode go a long way to get at last a very minute quantum of truth or of pleasure. In "The Album," by Boldini, who is at present in the front of the Roman legion, we see the last result of Fortuny's impetus,-a little decorated and bedizened peacock of a woman, unceremoniously clapped against a wall, ostensibly covered with a fantastic paper, but really adorned by a mad pyrotechnical medley of tints that convey nothing.

We may thank the eclectic nature of the collection for an easy means of relieving the eye from these spicy, but, on the whole, distressing performances. The English water-colorists are close at hand, with their quota of quiet, idyllic scenes. Mr. Lidder. dale's "Footsteps Behind Her" is a good example of the kind of mild and perfected crudity which is apt to get the upper hand in this school; but "The Intruders," by E. K. Johnson, is a fresh and not affectedly simple achievement,-unless the little girl, whom we think one of the prettiest figures in the gallery, be called affected. One very curious undertaking was Mr. Charles Green's "Brick Field." Some laborers posed in the act of lunching, with a good deal of ruddy-hued earth below and bebehind them, form the theme. The red coloring reminds us strongly of some of the landscape and figure-work of the late eminent Royal Academician, Fred Walker, though the large vigor of the latter is entirely wanting in the composition and drawing.

Mr. John Thorpe added two or three to the list of English works; James Symington developed in "Penelope" and "The Maid of Athens "a sort of cross between the old English kid-glove style and

would undoubtedly point to the anatomy and finish of the horses. These are simply perfect, and the mounted figures are also carefully drawn and solidly painted.

the pseudo-religious Overbeck manner; and Joseph | asked to note some special merit in the work, he Nash sent in some of his excellent but tiresome architectural studies of famous English houses, certainly more acceptable than the meager sketches with which our American architects were wont to injure the Society's exhibitions.

Two Historical Paintings.

MRS. IMOGENE ROBINSON MORRELL has lately exhibited in one of the rooms of the National Academy of Design two large historical pictures which are striking examples of American progress in one branch of art. Those who remember Leutze's theatric "Attack on an Aztec Temple," or Trumbull's mild-mannered "Surrender of Cornwallis," will come to the contemplation of Mrs. Morrell's "First Battle of the Puritans," and "Washington Welcoming the Provision Trains," with a pleased surprise. But, after all, this is only comparative praise. Mrs. Morrell's pictures have great and positive merits. They should get fame for any artist. It seems a little pitiful to say that they are wonderful for a

woman.

Let us rather say that they are honestly and faithfully executed works; that they are not above criticism, and that they do credit to American art.

These pictures are purely academical. It is easy to discern the traditions of Munich and Düsseldorf in their handling and composition. There is little roughness, and still less suggestiveness, about their manner and finish. The work of each is severely scholarly. There are no sweeps of tender lights and shades; no half-hidden figures struggling in a gloom of color. You feel that the artist could not have painted any such vagueness or distracting dim

ness of outline as Poe saw and Martin drew. All this work is vivid as the noonday light. To those who see nature differently, the color will seem hard, the figures academic, the modeling of the schools.

The more notable of the two paintings is that in which Washington is the central figure. There is nothing dramatic, or even saliently historic, in the incident which the artist has chosen for her subject. It is only the faithful student of his country's history who will remember that the patriot army was almost starving for lack of provisions when Washington had his head-quarters at Newburgh, New York. In the picture before us we have an admirably composed group of mounted men, in which Washington is, of course, the focal point of interest; an encampment in the left background, scattered figures of exultant men and boys to the right, and a broad and generous landscape for the distance and setting. The white covered wagons which bring the welcome provisions are merely "incidental to the piece," as the playwrights say. The noble group in the foreground commands all of our attention. And these Generals, we may as well say, might be discussing any one of a variety of topics. The supply train, however, attracts their attention, and gives them cause for some action. They are their own excuse for being. They are admirably painted, and no part of the canvas is slighted. If one were

"The First Battle of the Puritans" represents that passage in the life of Miles Standish, celebrated in Longfellow's lines, beginning thus:

"After a three days' march he came to an Indian encamp

ment

Pitched on the edge of a meadow, between the sea and the forest;

Women at work by the tents, and the warriors, horrid with war-paint,

Seated about a fire, and smoking and talking together; Who, when they saw from afar the sudden approach of the white men,

Saw the flash of the sun on breastplate and saber and musket,

Straightway leaped to their fect, and two, from among them advancing,

Came to parley with Standish, and offer him furs as a present.

Friendship was in their looks, but in their hearts there was hatred."

Captain Standish, it must be confessed, is not a dignified or majestic figure. He looks as if he might be a peppery and swaggering man-at-arms. History says that he was something of this sort. But he is, for all that, a fair type of the race which was to supplant the powerful aborigines. Two of these grand fellows lie prone on the earth where they have just fallen by the hand of the conquering white man. "Hobomok, friend of the white man," and interpreter, stands by the doughty Puritan with his evident congratulations. Beyond are the men of Plymouth; a forest furnishes a background, and the blue waters of the bay roll in the distance. It is a striking picture, carefully studied, full of good drawing, and painted with such conscience and

faithfulness that the most careless observer must see that it has been the study of many laborious years.

French and German Books.

FRITZ REUTER. Nachgelassene Schriften. New York: L. W. Schmidt.-The sadness of a clown, the inextinguishable melancholy of a humorist, these are facts met with at every turn and twist of life. The readers of Fritz Reuter would hardly believe that the jovial humorist who pictures in their own absurdly sounding dialect the various oddities of Pommeranian provincial towns, had gone through years of the bitterest, most cruel captivity. Fritz Reuter was a victim of the absolutism in Germany which in 1833, and again in 1848, suppressed the struggling freedom of the country with a hand which terror made only more foolish and vindictive. A student at Jena, he had been in the midst of the agitation among the young men at the universities, but was guilty of nothing. His arrest and confinement for seven years, his actual sufferings from disease, cold, hunger, and want of light, are terrible evidences of a brutal spirit in Germany which has not yet said its last word, and which will one day-and all the more quickly if the French will bide their time-come to the surface in a way to appall the world. This was a training indeed for a humorist, but who shall say

that he would ever have become what he was, had he had his freedom? It is more than probable that he would have married and settled down in Mecklenburg as a second-rate lawyer of the provinces. But his captivity carried after it a terrible malady of the stomach, a craving for alcohol at irregular periods, which no will-power could overcome, and this was financial ruin. Only after his fortieth year, when his betrothed came to the decision that it was her duty to marry him, did his career of literary prosperity begin. But his malady held fast to him till death.

Such a biography should be read; those who cannot understand the Plattdeutsch in which his work is written, can be moved by the sketch of his life in literary German prefixed to this volume. Yet, a little practice will often place the dialect itself within reach of a ready speaker of German, and then the Urgeschicht von Mecklenborg will reveal all its pleasant satire, and the pathos of the ballads Ok'ne lütte Gaw' for Dütschland and Grossmutting, hei is dod, will appear. Many words are almost the same as the English equivalents.

Fromont Jeune et Risler Ainé. Alphonse Daudet. New York: F. W. Christern, 77 University Place.An eleventh edition affords a chance to call attention to a most extraordinary novel, in hopes that those who have not yet read it may profit by the reminder. It may be said truly that Daudet's book is better than many sermons, because, addressing itself to the very class that needs it most, it is so powerfully and skillfully written, that it must be read; it will insist

that the reader shall push through to the saddest end by the light of the most pitiless logic of facts. But, if the heart be wrung, the tears which fall are at least shed on behalf of the suffering good, who are themselves not mere nonentities, but heroic souls, whose defeat must make the world sadder, but better. Weakness, deception, crime-it is the old story of Adam and Eve without its simplicity, and side by side runs the vein of patient devotion and selfsacrifice. Back of the character of la p'tite Chèbe, one feels the angry question: Why were her surroundings, her early life in haggard Paris, such as to make her what she was, the ruin of every one about her? It would seem that the fate of Désirée is bitter enough, but her destruction of the life of Risler outdoes everything else in pathos.

The scenes lie among the manufacturing people of Paris, and contain two figures on which Daudet has spared no pains in order to present them in the full glare of their braggart selfishness and cowardice. Both are men who live on the grinding toil of women, yet each is as distinct as if Daudet had really known them in person, as if he had not merely drawn their outlines, and drawn them twice, in order to convey the truth that there is a whole class of them in Paris. Although Daudet cannot be called the equal of Octave Feuillet in his profession, yet the Academy has done well to "crown" his work. For that France should read just now books like this and the inferior "Mariage dans le monde" of Feuillet is of an importance hard to overrate. The one strikes at adultery in the higher world of fashion, the other in the ranks of the true bourgeoisie.

Boiler Tube Stopper.

THE WORLD'S WORK.

To insure speedy repairs in case of collapsed boiler tubes, a new stopper, or self-acting plug, has been introduced and tried with success. It consists of two iron pistons, slightly less in diameter than the diameter of the tube to be closed, and joined together by a wrought-iron rod 46 centimeters (about 18 inches) long. On the face of each piston is cut a square ring or groove 13 millimeters (about 1⁄2 inch) wide. A rubber ring is fitted in each groove, thus making a loose packing for the piston. Small holes are also bored through the inner face of each piston, and just under the rubber rings. In use, the stopper is pushed into the tube till one piston passes the fractured place. On raising the steam, the water enters behind each piston through the break, and pressing on the inner side of the rubber rings, through the holes beneath them, expands them till they plug the tube in both directions.

Fire-Proof Construction.

IRON columns, such as are used in buildings,

have many advantages in point of strength, cheapness, and economy of room; but, in even an ordinary fire, they develop three defects that seriously impair their value as structural materials. The first is the softening and melting of the iron, whereby the column is crushed by the weight it sustains. The second is the expansion of the column by heat, and its effort to lift its load. The strain exerted by an iron column expanded 3 centimeters (1 inches) in length, and lifting its load that much is often sufficient to rupture the column. The third cause of failure is the fracture of a heated column caused by a stream of water suddenly thrown upon it. To prevent these accidents, and to enable the columns to survive the burning of the contents of a building, various methods of keeping the columns cool have been tried. Some recent experiments in this direction seem to show that a simple wooden sheathing round the column may answer the purpose cheaply and effectually. Three iron columns were tried in a brick furnace erected for the purpose. One was of a cruciform pattern, sheathed with red oak fastened

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