That the mound of Babil is the ziggurat or tower of a Babylonian temple scarcely admits of a doubt.  Its square shape, its solid construction, its isolated grandeur, its careful emplacement with the sides facing the cardinal points, and its close resemblance to other known Babylonian temple-towers, sufficiently mark it for a building of this character, or at any rate raise a presumption which it would require very strong reasons indeed to overcome.  Its size moreover corresponds well with the accounts which have come down to us of the dimensions of the Belus temple, and its name and proximity to the other main ruins show that it belonged certainly to the ancient capital.  Against its claim to be regarded as the remains of the temple of Bolus two objections only can be argued:  these are the absence of any appearance of stages, or even of a pyramidical shape, from the present ruin, and its position on the same side of the Euphrates with the palace.  Herodotus expressly declares that the temple of Belus and the royal palace were upon opposite sides of the river, and states, moreover, that the temple was built in stages, which rose one above the other to the number of eight.  Now these two circumstances, which do not belong at present to the Babil mound, attach to a ruin distant from it about eleven or twelve miles—­a ruin which is certainly one of the most remarkable in the whole country, and which, if Babylon had really been of the size asserted by Herodotus, might possibly have been included within the walls.  The Birs-i-Nimrud had certainly seven, probably eight stages, and it is the only ruin on the present western bank of the Euphrates which is at once sufficiently grand to answer to the descriptions of the Belus temple, and sufficiently near to the other ruin to make its original inclusion within the walls not absolutely impossible.  Hence, ever since the attention of scholars was first directed to the subject of Babylonian topography, opinion has been divided on the question before us, and there have not been wanting persons to maintain that the Birs-i-Nimrud is the true temple of Belus, if not also the actual tower of Babel, whose erection led to the confusion of tongues and general dispersion of the sons of Adam.

With this latter identification we are not in the present place concerned.  With respect to the view that the Birs is the sanctury of Belus, it may be observed in the first place that the size of the building is very much smaller than that ascribed to the Belus temple; secondly, that it was dedicated to Kebo, who cannot be identified with Bel; and thirdly, that it is not really any part of the remains of the ancient capital, but belongs to an entirely distinct town.  The cylinders found in the ruin by Sir Henry Eawlinson declare the building to have been “the wonder of Borsippa;” and Borsippa, according to all the ancient authorities, was a town by itself—­an entirely distinct place from Babylon.  To include Borsippa within the outer