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 180 BABBAGE BABEL five mosques, a college, and an aqueduct, and was 'of great strategical importance in the Turko-Russian conflicts of the 18th century and in the Crimean war, when the forts were ineffectually bombarded by the Russians (March 27, 1854). BABBAGE, Charles, an English mathematician, born at Teignmouth, Deo. 26, 1792, died in Lon- don, Oct. 20, 1871. He was a fellow student of Sir John Herschel at the university of Cam- bridge, and was Lucasian professor there from 1828 to 1839. He became celebrated as the inventor of the calculating machine. (See CALCULATING MACHINES.) He was one of the founders of the royal astronomical society and of the British association, and the originator of the statistical society, and wrote extensively for scientific and philosophical periodicals on math- ematics, magnetic and electric phenomena, mechanical science, geology, and statistics. Among his works are : " Letter to Sir Hum- phry Davy on the Application of Machinery to Mathematical Tables" (1822); translations, with Herschel and Peacock, of Lacroix's works on the differential and integral calculus ; " Com- parative View of the different Institutions for the Assurance of Life" (1826); "A Table of the Logarithms of the Natural Numbers from 1 to 108,000" (1826) ; " Reflections on the De- cline of Science in England " (1830); "Econ- omy of Manufactures and Machinery " (1832), which passed through many English editions and foreign translations, and has been called by Blanqni a hymn in honor of machinery ; " A Ninth Bridgewater Treatise" (1837), defending mathematical studies from the charge of a ten- dency to infidelity ; " The Great Exposition " (1851) ; and "Passages from the Life of a Phi- losopher" (1864). His house in London was for many years a centre of intellectual society. BABCOCK, Rnfns, D. D., an American, clergy- man, born at North Colebrook, Conn., Sept. 18, 1798. Pie graduated at Brown university in 1821, and was for two years tutor in Columbian college, D. C. In 1823 he was ordained pastor of the Baptist church at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. ; in 1826 he became pastor in Salem, Mass. ; and in 1833 he was elected president of Waterville college, Maine; but his health failing, he re- signed in 1836, and accepted the pastorate of the Spruce street Baptist church in Philadel- phia, whence he returned after three years to his first charge at Poughkeepsie. He was sub- sequently pastor of a church in Paterson, N. J., and has held successively the offices of secretary of the American and foreign Bible society, of the American Sunday school union, and of the Pennsylvania colonization society. He edited for five years the "Baptist Memorial," and has published a "Memoir of Andrew Ful- ler" (1830), "History of Waterville College" (1836), " Tales of Truth for the Young " (1837), "The Emigrant's Mother" (1859), "Memoirs of John M. Peck" (1862), &c. BABEL, the Hebrew name for Babylon and the Babjlonian empire. In the language of the Chaldeans it was probably Bab- II, the " gate of (the highest) God ; " but the Hebrew form is explained by balal (or bilbel), to con- found, in allusion to the confounding of tongues consequent on the building of the tower of Babel. This tower was probably never carried to any great elevation, but a sacredness may have been attached to the spot on which it was to be built ; and there, long after, was erected the pyramidal temple of Bel-Merodach, finally repaired by Nebuchad- nezzar, the ruins of which, at Borsippa, are now known as Birs Nimrud (citadel of Nim- rod). Except in one passage (Gen. xi. 9), there is no reference in Scripture to the tower of Ba- bel ; but we are told of a temple of Bel in which Nebuchadnezzar placed the spoils of Jerusalem, and probably those of his other conquests. Herodotus describes a temple of Belus, which according to him consisted of a "solid tower of a stadium in depth and width; upon this tower another is'raised, and another upon that, to the number of eight towers." This gen- eral description tallies so closely with the mound of Birs Nimrud as to render it probable that this is the remains of the temple of Belus. The ruin presents the aspect of a huge irregular mound, rising abruptly from a wide desert plain, with masses of vitrified mat- ter lying around its base. Its interior is found upon excavation to be composed of a mass of brick partially vitrified by fire, showing that it is the ruin of a structure into which combus- tible material largely entered. The bricks dis- interred from the mound bear inscriptions in the cuneiform character, in most of which the name of Nebuchadnezzar appears. One of the inscriptions of this monarch reads : "A former king had built it (they reckon 42 ages) ; but he did not complete its head. Since a remote time the people had abandoned it, without or- der expressing their words. Since that time the earthquake and the thunder had dispersed its sun-dried clay. The bricks of the casing had been split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps." Attempts have been made to represent this temple of Belus, as restored and rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar. That which appears most probable is by Sir Henry Rawlinson. He says : " Upon a platform of crude brick, raised a few feet above the allu- vial plain, was built of burnt brick the first or basement stage, an exact square, 272 ft. each way, and 26 ft. in perpendicular height. Upon this stage was erected a second, 230 ft. each way, and likewise 26 ft. in perpendicular height, which, however, was not placed ex- actly in the middle of the first, but considera- bly nearer to the southwestern end, which con- stituted the back of the building. The other stages were arranged similarly, the third being 188 ft. square and 26 ft. high ; the fourth, 146 ft. square and 15 ft. high; the fifth, 104 ft. square, of the same height as the fourth ; the sixth, 62 ft. square, and again the same height; the seventh, 20 ft. square, and once more the