On the other hand, she may have conveyed to India, or at least to Babylon, the productions which the Phoenicians brought to Tyre and Sidon from the various countries bordering upon the Mediterranean Sea and even the Atlantic Ocean, as tin, hides, pottery, oil, wine, linen.

On this point, however, we have at present no evidence at all; and as it is not the proper office of a historian to indulge at any length in mere conjecture, the consideration of the commercial dealings of the Assyrians may be here brought to a close.
On the agriculture of the Assyrians a very few remarks will be offered.
It has been already explained that the extent of cultivation depended entirely on the conveyance of water.

There is good reason to believe that the Assyrians found a way to spread water over almost the whole of their territory.

Either by the system of _kanats_ or subterranean aqueducts, which has prevailed in the East from very early times, or by an elaborate network of canals, the fertilizing fluid was conveyed to nearly every part of Mesopotamia, which shows by its innumerable mounds, in regions which are now deserts, how large a population it was made to sustain under the wise management of the great Assyrians monarchs.

Huge dams seem to have been thrown across the Tigris in various places, one of which (the Afrui) still remains, seriously impeding the navigation.
It is formed of large masses of squared stones, united together by cramps of iron.