Among the mineral products of Assyria, bitumen, naphtha, petroleum, sulphur, alum, and salt have also to be reckoned.  The bitumen pits of Kerkuk, in the country between the Lesser Zab and the Adhem, are scarcely less celebrated than those of Hit; and there are some abundant springs of the same character close to Nimrud, in the bed of the Shor Derrell torrent.  The Assyrian palaces furnish sufficient evidence that the springs were productive in old times; for the employment of bitumen as a cement, though not so frequent as in Babylonia, is yet occasionally found in them.  With the bitumen are always procured both naphtha and petroleum; while at Kerkuk there is an abundance of sulphur also.  Salt is obtained from springs in the Kerkuk country; and is also formed in certain small lakes lying between the Sinjar and Babylonia.  Alum is plentiful in the hills about Kifri.

The most remarkable wild animals of Assyria are the following:  the lion, the leopard, the lynx, the wild-cat, the hyaena, the wild ass, the bear, the deer, the gazelle, the ibex, the wild sheep, the wild boar, the jackal, the wolf, the fox, the beaver, the jerboa, the porcupine, the badger, and the hare.  The Assyrian lion is of the maneless kind, and in general habits resembles the lion of Babylonia.  The animal is comparatively rare in the eastern districts, being seldom found on the banks of the Tigris above Baghdad, and never above Kileh-Sherghat.  On the Euphrates it has been seen as high as Bir; and it is frequent on the banks of the Khabour, and in the Sinjar.  It has occasionally that remarkable peculiarity—­so commonly represented on the sculptures—­a short horny claw at the extremity of the tail in the middle of the ordinary tuft of hair.  The ibex or wild goat—­also a favorite subject with the Assyrian sculptors—­is frequent in Kurdistan, and moreover abounds on the highest ridges of the Abd-el-Aziz and the Sinjar, where it is approached with difficulty by the hunter.  The gazelle, wild boar, wolf, jackal, fox, badger, porcupine, and hare are common in the plains, and confined to no particular locality.  The jerboa is abundant near the Khabour.  Beau’s and deer are found on the skirts of the Kurdish hills.  The leopard, hyaena, lynx, and beaver are comparatively rare.  The last named animal, very uncommon in Southern Asia, was at one time found in large numbers on the Khabour; but in consequence of the value set upon its musk bag, it has been hunted almost to extermination, and is now very seldom seen.  The Khabour beavers are said to be a different species from the American.  Their tail is not large and broad, but sharp and pointed; nor do they build houses, or construct dams across the stream, but live in the banks, making themselves large chambers above the ordinary level of the floods, which are entered by holes beneath the water-line.