identified with the ruins called Birs Nimrud, about six miles t o the south-west of the site of ancient Babylon.

Birs Nimrud is "a pyramidical mound, crowned apparently by the ruins of a tower, rising to the height of one

hundred and fifty-five and a half feet above the level of the plain, and in circumference somewhat more than

two thousand feet."  27

Its distance from Babylon, however, seems opposed to the idea that these are the ruins of the tower spoken

of in Scripture. But even so, Birs Nimrud can only be a few centuries younger than the tower of Babel; and

its construction enables us to judge what the appearance of the original tower must have been. Birs Nimrud

faced north-east, and formed a sort of "oblique pyramid, built in seven receding stages. The platform on

which these stages rested was of crude brick; the stages themselves of burnt brick, painted in different

colors in honor of gods or planets - each stage as it was placed on the other receding, so as to be

considerably nearer the back of the building, or the south-west." The first stage, painted black in honor of

Saturn, was a square of two hundred and seventy-two feet, and twenty-six feet high; the second stage,

orange colored, in honor of Jupiter, was a square of two hundred and thirty feet, and twenty-six high; the

third stage, bright red, in honor of Mars, was a square of one hundred and eighty-eight feet, and also

twenty-six high; the fourth stage, golden, for the Sun, was one hundred and forty-six feet square, and fifteen

high; the fifth stage, pale yellow, for Venus, was one hundred and four feet square, and fifteen high; the

sixth stage, dark blue, for Mercury, was sixty-two feet square, and fifteen high; and the seventh stage, silver,

for the Moon, was twenty feet square, and fifteen high. The whole was surmounted by a chapel, which must

have nearly covered the whole top. The whole height, as already stated, was one hundred and fifty-three

feet; or about one-third that of the great pyramid of Egypt, which measures four hundred and eighty feet. It

is also interesting to notice, how exactly what we know of early Babylonian architecture tallies with what we

read in Scripture: "Let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime (or

rather, bitumen) had they for mortar." The small burnt bricks, laid in bitumen, are still there; not only in the

tower, but in the still existing ruins of the ancient palace of Babel, which was coeval with the building of the

city itself.

Holy Scripture does not inform us whether "the tower" was allowed to stand after the dispersion of its

builders ; nor yet does it furnish any details as to the manner in which "Jehovah did there confound the

language of all the earth." All this would have been beyond its purpose. But there, at the very outset, when

the first attempt was made to found, in man's strength, a vast kingdom of this world, which God brought to

naught by confounding the language of its builders, and by scattering them over the face of the earth, we

see a typical judgment, of which the counterpart in blessing was granted on the day of Pentecost; when, by

the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, another universal kingdom was to be founded, the first token of which

was that gift of tongues, which pointed forward to a reunion of the nations, when the promise would be

fulfilled that they should all be gathered into the tents of Shem!