38o 



THE' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



those established by existing statutes with re- 

 spect to the staudard weij;bts and measures 

 heretofore provided. And it is hereby provided 

 that no shire town in which there may be two 

 or more sealers of weights and measures shall 

 for that reason be required to procure additional 

 sets of the metric weights and measures. 



Sec. 5. The deputy and Treasurer shall verify, 

 adjust, and seal all metric weights and meas- 

 ures that may be brought to him for that pur- 

 pose, and he shall receive a reasonable compen- 

 sation therefor; and the sealer of weights and 

 measures in each town that shall receive the 

 standard metric weights and measures, as here- 

 inbefore provided, shall verify, adjust, and seal 

 all metric weights and measures that may be 

 brought to him for that purpose from within the 

 county in which such town is situated, and he 

 shall receive a reasonable compensation there- 

 for; but he shall claim no fees for any sealing, 

 verification, or adjustment, for the performance 

 of which he may otherwise receive compensa- 

 tion by salary paid by the town. 



Sec. 6. All persons using weights or meas- 

 ures of the metric system for the purpose of 

 selling any goods, wares, merchandise, or other 

 commodities, shall have them adjusted, sealed, 

 and recorded, by some authorized sealer of 

 weights and measures, and shall thereafter be 

 responsible for the correctness and exactness 

 of the same ; and no person using illegally or 

 fraudulently the metric weights and measures 

 shall thereby be freed from any liabilities or 

 penalties to which he would have been exposed 

 in case the weights and measures employed had 

 been the ordinary weights and measures hereto- 

 fore and BOW in use in this Commonwealth. 



Cleopatra's Noodle. This obelisk, of Sy- 

 enitic granite, sixty-eight and one-half feet 

 long, six feet eleven inches wide on each 

 side of the base, tapering to four feet nine 

 inches near the summit, is 3,300 years old, 

 and was set up by Sesostris in front of the 

 temple at Heliopolis. It was brought to 

 Alexandria by Cleopatra about the year 40, 

 and has keen there, standing or lying, up- 

 ward of 1,800 years. It is of rose-colored 

 Stonc, and is covered with hieroglyphics. 

 It was presented many years ago by the 

 Pasha of Egypt to the Prince Regent of Eng- 

 land, and the British Government accepted 

 the gift, but have never been able to get 

 it transported to London. At length Dr. 

 Erasmus Wilson, a distinguished surgeon of 

 that metropolis, and known as the author of 

 books on skin-diseases, concluded to pay 

 the expenses himself of transporting the 

 great monolith, and bargained with a Mr. 

 Dixon to bring it to England and erect it on 

 the Thames Embankment for 10,000. 



The plan proposed for transporting the 

 " Needle " to England is described as fol- 

 lows in Chambers's Journal: " The obelisk 

 is to be fixed by cross-divisions or dia- 

 phragms of wood in a cylindrical vessel 

 formed of wrought-iion plates. There will 

 be seven diaphragms, and consequently 

 nine water-tight compartments. For safe- 

 ty, the obelisk will be inclosed in wood and 

 well packed, a little below the central level 

 of the vessel, which will be closed at both 

 ends. When completed, with the obelisk 

 inside, the vessel will be about ninety-five 

 feet in length and fifteen feet across. After 

 being rolled into the sea and towed to the 

 harbor, it will be ballasted and be provided 

 with a keel, deck, sail, and rudder. For 

 these operations, man-holes will have been 

 left in the cylinder. These holes will be 

 opened, so that access may be had to all 

 the compartments. There will be no part 

 into which a man may not enter if neces- 

 sary until the cylinder is finally sealed up 

 for floating. The vessel will be in charge 

 of two or three skilled mariners, for whom 

 a small cabin on deck will be provided. It 

 will be towed the whole way by a steam- 

 tug, the sail being simply for steadying the 

 cylinder." There is likely to be some de- 

 lay in executing this project, for it is now 

 reported that the Egyptian who owns the 

 sand around the obeH|k objects to the re- 

 moval of the shaft, claiming it as his prop- 

 erty. 



Edneation and Crime. In a recent num- 

 ber of the Pohitechnic Review is an abstract 

 of a paper on " Useful Education," by Mr. 

 R. Bingham, containing many facts and ob- 

 servations that are worthy of notice in these 

 times of " forcing " in education. Mr. 

 Bingham does not believe that school-edu- 

 cation tends to diminish crime. He says 

 that the ratio of crime to population is less 

 in Ireland than in Massachusetts, and that 

 property is more secure in Italy, with its 

 many millions of illiterates, than in the Old 

 Bay State with all its schools. Of the 373 

 prisoners received last year into the West- 

 ern Penitentiary of the State of Pennsyl- 

 vania, 285 had attended public schools, 19 

 private schools, and 69 had never gone to 

 school. Of the 2,383 prisoners received 

 into the Eastern Penitentiary of the same 



