<engraved letterhead/address>
Royal Asiatic Society,
5, New Burlington Street, W.,
London,
30 April, 1860.
Dear Sir
I have received your proof and sent it to the printer. In your final paragraph I fear that one expression may lead future readers into error: they may suppose that there is another Memoir by Sir H Rawlinson, besides the one in the present volume. Might you not say that the preceding paper of the present volume, (the 18th) was stitched up at the end of vol. 17, in order to avoid any further delay, as it had remained in stock too long already? This will account for your notice of a paper, which future readers, finding to be bound up in the same volume with yours will suppose that you have not seen. I have gone upon the supposition that all persons who have the volumes, will bind up Rawlinson’s paper with vol XVIII, taking it away from its present plan. You might say instead of "appended to it" – "stitched up with it the memoir &c which forms the first article in the present volume." But you will no doubt, find a more concise expression than mine, which, I am too conscious, runs a trifle into rigmarole.
I am not sure that Oppert’s translation in the Journal asiatique was not the first. I do not know the date of his pamphlet on the Chronology. His paper in the Journal appeared I think in 1856, but I have not the volume at hand; it was very long, and full of notes. If you say "another translation" and omit the word "recently", there can be no error.
I have another paper, on Babylonian Chronology, ready for the printer, and have no doubt it will make up enough to issue at once. I think we may get it out within a month after your paper is done.
I am Dear Sir yours faithfully
Edwin Norris
H F. Talbot, Esq
&c &c &c