BM
14th March 1873
My dear Sir,
Your proofs have come safe to hand and they will do very well. The idea suggested itself when they were examined that it would be desirable to have the references given but your intentions of giving the texts in the appendix will quite meet that and obviate the necessity
The words ref in pencil in the margins were mine as also some others but not all. The 35 Plates of the 4th Vol of Inscr. of W. Asia are ready and I have urged Sir H. Rawlinson to publish them at once – so as to enable students to go on with their researches – the other 35 are in hand Mr Bowler during Mr Smiths absence being engaged in making the copies. The idea is still entertained of publishing an 8th volume <1> of Translations only without texts or comments of the most remarkable Assyrian and other inscriptions for the general public so that the knowledge of their contents may be diffused amongst persons not acquainted with details, who require however the results for chronological historical and other purposes You might cooperate if the plan is carried out by supplying revised translations of some of the important historical Texts M. F. Lenormant who has been in London has been studying the bilingual texts and tells me he can now read the Accadian easily – He has found that the inscriptions on the cranial demoneacal head and on a statuette at Paris for to the demons of the West or Desert Wind, and that figures of this demon to avert the influence were placed in windows facing the West
Yours very Truly
S Birch
H. Fox Talbot EsqreNotes:
1. Birch has obviously made a mistake here, meaning the 5th volume, next in the British Museum series.