Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/505

 into the lower Euphrates, a little to the north of the head of the Persian Gulf, the country whence the people or race came that built Babylon, and founded the Chaldean civilization. The age of this topographical work is unknown, but it is assumed to be as old, at least, as the seventh century before Christ. It represents, in a rude form of design, the plan of the town, its walls, the citadel, the king's palace, and a central square surrounded on three sides by what is either a wall or a colonnade of buildings of uniform character. On the remaining square is a large gateway, and the suburbs surrounding the town are represented as planted with date-trees and interspersed with buildings to the banks of the river.

The Egyptians had maps, although but little is known of them. There is a papyrus preserved in the museum at Boolak containing a map of Lake Mœris, on the Nile. It shows the plan of the basin with its canal, and the position of towns and of certain sanctuaries upon the borders of the basin, with explanatory texts giving information respecting these places. There is also an old Egyptian map preserved at



Turin of what is now Wady Alaiki, where the Nubian gold-mines were situated, in the land anciently called Aki-ta. It is a mountainous country, of dreary, sterile, waterless valleys, where men and beasts died upon the roads to these mines. The map shows the mountain-tracts, the rocks, and the places where gold was found, the ore-bearing mountains being marked in red color. It also shows the wells, a temple erected to Ammon on the mountain, and the appurtenances and buildings in the gold-districts. The roads, which had been abandoned, leading to the sea, are also given. "Nothing," says Brugsch Bey, "is