Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/33

Rh my two journeys, and yet there remain at least 20,000 fragments buried in the ruins without the recovery of which it is impossible to complete these valuable Assyrian inscriptions.

Being now urged by many friends who were interested in the subject, I sent the following account to the editor of the "Daily Telegraph," which was printed in that paper on the 4th of March, 1875:—

"Having recently made a series of important discoveries relating to the Book of Genesis, among some remarkable texts, which form part of the collection presented to the British Museum by the proprietors of 'The Daily Telegraph,' I venture once more to bring Assyrian subjects before your readers.

"In my lecture on the Chaldean Account of the Deluge, which I delivered on Dec. 3, 1872, I stated my conviction that all the earlier narratives of Genesis would receive new light from the inscriptions so long buried in the Chaldean and Assyrian mounds; but I little thought at that time that I was so near to finding most of them.

"My lecture, as your readers know, was soon followed by the proposal of your proprietors and the organizing of 'The Daily Telegraph' expedition to Assyria. When excavating at Kouyunjik during that expedition, I discovered the missing portion of the first column of the Deluge tablet, an account of which I sent home; and in the same trench I subsequently found the fragment which I afterwards recognized as part of the Chaldean story of the