128 with walls. From his being the founder of the city, he was afterwards worshipped as a god by the Babylonians, under the name of Bel, or Belus. The city was improved and enlarged under the reign of Semiramis, a celebrated queen of Babylon. Other additions were made to it by succeeding monarchs. Nebuchadnezzar finished it in a style of great magnificence. Before this time Babylon had been celebrated all over the east for its strength and beauty; but it wasnow considered the finest city in the world. It was laid out in an exact square, sixty miles in circumference, and the river Euphrates ran through the middle of it. The walls were 87 feet thick, 350 feet high, and 15 miles in length upon each side. They were built of bricks, cemented together by a kind of bitumen dug out of the earth in that country, and which was much harder than common mortar. They were surrounded by a large and deep ditch; lined with bricks, and filled with water, on the walls, were two hundred and fifty towers, and between the towers and battlements on the walls, -- *: - - t was a wide street, upon which people might ride or
