Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/290

 the scorpion is said to belong to the eighth month, in which, of course, it should naturally appear.

This assists in explaining a curious tablet printed in "Cuneiform Inscriptions," vol. iii. p. 52, No. 1, which has been misunderstood. This tablet speaks of the appearance of comets, one of which has a tail "like a lizard (or creeping thing) and a scorpion."

The land of Mas or desert of Mas over which Izdubar travels in this tablet is the desert on the west of the Euphrates; on the sixth column the fragments appear to refer to some bird with magnificent

feathers like precious stones, seen by Izdubar on his journey.

I have altered my translation of the passage in pp. 255, 256, which I now believe to relate that Izdubar at the direction of Urhamsi made a spear from one of the trees of the forest before going across the waters of death which separated the abode of Hasisadra from the world of mortals. I do not, however, understand the passage, as from the mutilated condition of the inscription it does not appear what he attacked with it.