Among the most important results of philological research in recent years is the decipherment of the Hittite language by Dr. Friedrich Hrozný, Professor of Semitic Languages in the University of Vienna. Hrozný's account of his work is contained in the Mitteilungen der deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft (No. 15), and at the suggestion of my friend—now, alas, the late—Professor James Hope Moulton, I have summarized Hrozný's interim report for English readers.

Ahura is besought to send Success and Immortality, to the Representative Saint among His People, through His Holy Spirit and Its practical Influence.

1. Śvāntena, kila puṇyena, manyuna, vasiṣṭhena ca manasā,

(b) sacā ṛtāt(-te) cyautnenaca vacasā ca (-ā-)

(c) asmai dhuḥ(-r) (dāt) sarvatātī(-y-)-amṛtatve

(d) sumedhāḥ kṣatreṇa-(-ā-)-aramatī(-y) asuraḥ.

Ahura is besought to work out this Blest Result by Means of Personal Propagation and the Gāthic Hymns sung widely, and through the Organized Devoted Labour of Aramaiti—He is thus the Father of His Saint (inspired by Asha Archangel of the Law).

The Society of Biblical Archæology was born at a meeting held on November 18, 1870, at the rooms of Mr. Joseph Bonomi, Curator of the Soane Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Its ruling spirit was from the first Dr. Samuel Birch, the then Keeper of the Assyrian and Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, at whose instance the meeting was convened. It was attended by some eighteen gentlemen, of whom Sir Henry Rawlinson, Mr. Fox Talbot, Mr. J. W. Bosanquet, and Canon Cook were perhaps those best known to fame, and in the result decided to form itself into a Society “for the investigation of the Archæology, Chronology, Geography, and History of Ancient and Modern Assyria, Arabia, Egypt, Palestine, and other Biblical Lands, the promotion of the study of the Antiquities of those countries, and the preservation of a continuous record of discoveries now or hereafter to be in progress”. With this view an association with Mr. William Cooper as Secretary was instituted, which by March 21 in the following year had received a sufficient number of adherents to hold monthly meetings, at which papers were read, to be afterwards printed and circulated either at the author's expense or at that of one or two of the richer members. In his Inaugural Address to the first of these gatherings, Dr. Birch, who had been unanimously elected President, gave a summary, still well worth reading, on the then state of Oriental Archæology and the discovery of its principal monuments, and struck the note which has been sustained throughout the Society's history by the announcement that “Archæology and not Theology” was its aim, and that “it must be attractive to all who are interested in the primitive and early history of mankind”. Early in 1872 it had progressed sufficiently to take rooms at 9 Conduit Street, Regent Street, to formulate a set of Rules, afterwards embodied in the Memorandum and Articles of Association, and to publish the first volume of Transactions, together with a list of 166 members, which included Mr. Tyssen Amherst (afterwards Lord Amherst of Hackney), Mr. Arthur Cates (of H.M. Office of Works), Canon T. K. Cheyne, Dr. Currey (Master of the Charterhouse), Mr. Gladstone, Count Gleichen, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry Howorth, Canon Lightfoot, Professor Mahaffy, Mr. Walter Morrison, Canon George Rawlinson, Professor Sayce, and Captain (afterwards Sir Charles) Wilson, R.E.—names which show how widely the net had been thrown. Of the papers published, many were of high merit, and included a study of the Early History of Babylonia by the late George Smith, another on the Origin of Semitic Civilization by Professor Sayce, and several on the then newly-found Cypriote Inscriptions, by their discoverer, Mr. R. Hamilton Lang (H.M. Consul at Cyprus), George Smith, and Dr. Birch.

1. The Identification of the Name D-Tagtug Sumero-Babylonian myths and legends were rich in tales of prehistoric rulers, heroes who became the subjects of epics, poems, and cults. Consecutive and intensive study of Cuneiform inscriptions has revealed a vast structure of ancient Sumerian hero-worship upon which was erected their extensive theological and ethical literature. Of the kings of the first legendary dynasty at Kish; Etana, a one-time shepherd, became the hero of a fine poem, preserved only in Semitic, known as The Legend of Etana, him who essayed to mount to heaven on the wings of an eagle in quest of the “plant of child- bearing”. Dumuzi, the hunter, king in a legendary dynasty of Erech, was deified and became the dying god of Sumerian religion. Gilgamish, a king of the same dynasty, became the national hero of Sumer and Akkad, about whom arose endless stories of the chase and the epic of “He that hath seen all things”, or the so-called Epic of Gilgamish. Ziudsuddu, last of the ten legendary kings before the flood, became the famous survivor of the Flood in both Sumerian and Accadian poems of the Deluge. About Adapa, a seafaring sage of Eridu, was told one of the versions of the fall of man.

A Late issue of the Times contained an article on Labour action songs, giving illustrations. I give below two of the chants which are, or used to be, droned out by the palki-bearers on the Simla—Bilaspur and the Dalhousie-Pathānkot road The railway and Tonga have now nearly made them a thing of the past. The palki or palanquin is carried by four bearers who shoulder the pole running through the vehicle, two men in front and two behind.

Correction in Book-notice, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, July and October, 1918, p. 631:—

Owing to two of the printers' characters having fallen out at the ends of the third and second lines from below, the translation of the Babylonian tablet there given is somewhat confused. I therefore repeat it here:—

“A field, as much as there is, a field of sesame and grain, the field of Ḫadi-wamer-Šamaš, Rammānu-šarri-ili and Ḫadi-wamer-Šamaš have hired from Ḫadi-wamer-Šamaš, the lord of the field, as a (field of) partnership, for a year.”

Portions of a phrase omitted in compiling the Book-notice have also been inserted.

Correction in the JRAS. for October, 1917:—

p. 731, in the last line but one of the Translation, for “As we would not disobey thee”, read “So as not to disobey (?) thee”.

pp. 732–3, strike out “In all probability”, etc., to the end of the paragraph.