4.] The Assyrians made use of bronze bells with iron tongues, and, to render the sound of these more pleasing, they increased the proportion of the tin to the copper, raising it front ten to fourteen per cent.

The bells were always of small size, never (so far as appears) exceeding three inches and a quarter in height and two inches and a quarter in diameter.
It is uncertain whether they were used, as modern bells, to summon attendants, or only attached, as we see them on the sculptures, to the collars and headstalls of horses.
Some houses, but probably not very many, had gardens attached to them.
The Assyrian taste in gardening was like that of the French.

Trees of a similar character, or tall trees alternating with short ones, were planted in straight rows at an equal distance from one another, while straight paths and walks, meeting each other at right angles, traversed the grounds.

Water was abundantly supplied by means of canals drawn off from a neighboring river, or was brought by an aqueduct from a distance.
A national taste of a peculiar kind, artificial and extravagant to a degree, caused the Assyrians to add to the cultivation of the natural ground the monstrous invention of "Hanging Gardens:" an invention introduced into Babylonia at a comparatively late date, but known in Assyria as early as the time of Sennacherib.

A "hanging garden" was sometimes combined with an aqueduct, the banks of the stream which the aqueduct bore being planted with trees of different kinds.