Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/31

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BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
15

of the Greek Geoponica, of which there is a Syriac version in the British Museum, being founded on a misunderstanding, it may be dismissed at once.

A scholar, already known by one of the most important works which Oriental learning has produced of late years, Prof. Chwolson, of St. Petersburgh, the author of a work on the Sabian Religion and the School of Harran, has just taken a decisive step towards the solution of the question which occupies us. Having had access to and consulted all the manuscripts of “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture” which exist in the various libraries of Europe, Dr. Chwolson has made the most perfect copy of it possible,[1] and, in order to quiet the impatience of the literary world till the publication of this revised text, he has embodied in a memoir an abstract of the results of his researches.[2]

  1. Dr. Chwolson has informed me by a letter, that the lacuma which remained in his copy at the time of the publication of his memoir has been filled up. The existence of four new manuscripts of “The Nabathæan Agriculture” at Constantinople has been announced.
  2. “Ueber die Ueberreste der Altbabylonischen Literatur in