red kiln dried bricks, likewise cemented with bitumen.  This external wall is at once strengthened and diversified to the eye by a number of shallow buttresses or pilasters in the same material; of these there are nine, including the corner ones, on the longer, and six on the shorter sides.  The width of the buttresses is eight feet, and their projection a little more than a foot.  The walls and buttresses alike slope inwards at an angle of nine degrees.  On the north-eastern side of the building there is a staircase nine feet wide, with sides or balustrades three feet wide, which leads up from the platform to the top of the first story.  It has also been conjectured that there was a second or grand staircase on the south-east face, equal in width to the second story of the building, and thus occupying nearly the whole breadth of the structure on that side.  A number of narrow slits or air-holes are carried through the building from side to side; they penetrate alike the walls and buttresses, and must have tended to preserve the dryness of the structure.  The second story is, like the first, a parallelogram, and not of very different proportions.  Its longer sides measure 119 feet, and its shorter ones 75 feet at the base.  Its emplacement upon the first story is exact as respects the angles, but not central as regards the four sides.  While it is removed from the south-eastern edge a distance of 47 feet, from the northwestern it is distant only 30 feet.  From the two remaining sides its distance is apparently about 28 feet.  The present height of the second story, including the rubbish upon its top, is 19 feet; but we may reasonably suppose that the original height was much greater.  The material of which its inner structure is composed, seems to be chiefly (or wholly) partially-burnt brick, of a light red color, laid in a cement composed of lime and ashes.  This central mass is faced with kiln-dried bricks of large size and excellent quality, also laid, except on the north-west face, in lime mortar.  No buttresses and no staircase are traceable on this story; though it is possible that on the south-east side the grand staircase may have run the whole height of both stories.

According to information received by Mr. Taylor from the Arabs of the vicinity, there existed, less than half a century ago, some remains of a third story, on the summit of the rubbish which now crowns the second.  This building is described as a room or chamber, and was probably the actual shrine of the god in whose honor the whole structure was erected.  Mr. Taylor discovered a number of bricks or tiles glazed with a blue enamel, and also a number of large copper nails, at such a height in the rubbish which covers up much of the second story, that he thinks they could only have come from this upper chamber.  The analogy of later Babylonian buildings, as of the Birs-Nimrud and the temple of Belus at Babylon confirms this view, and makes it probable that the early Chaldaean temple was a building in three stages, of which the first and second were solid masses of brickwork, ascended by steps on the outside, while the third was a small house or chamber highly ornamented, containing the image and shrine of the god. [PLATE IX., Fig. 2.]