148 Study of the New York Obelisk as a Decayed Boulder. 



the Metropolitan Board of Works. My report was that the granite 

 had become largely decomposed at the surface, and was more or less 

 undermined by the action of the weather during many centuries; 

 that one face was far more eroded by the attrition of the sand, and 

 perhaps by the chemical action of the Nile water, than were the 

 other three sides. In short, that the granite was precisely in that 

 absorbent state that it would imbibe dampness from our atmos- 

 phere, and become liable to exfoliate and throw off scale after scale, 

 under the influence of frost, until but little of the inscriptions would 

 be likely to remain, after one or two of our English winters." As to 

 the preservative soon after applied, Mr. John Dixon, the engineer 

 who conveyed the monolith to London, writes, in a recent letter 

 (May, 1891) to the London Times: — 



"My attention has been drawn to some statements in the House 

 of Commons as to the alleged decay of the Egyptian obelisk on the 

 Thames Embankment. 



"After making a careful personal examination of the monument, 

 my critical eye fails to detect upon its surface a sign of any decay 

 whatever. Were there such, there could be no doubt there would be 

 grains of the stone lying on the altar steps and top of the pedestal. 

 I climbed up and could not see one sign of any decay. I also could 

 see glittering points on the surface, of the solution of silica supplied 

 to me by the skilled chemists of the British Museum, at the sugges- 

 tion of my old friends. Sir Richard Owen and Dr. Birch, and of 

 which three coats or washes were given with the greatest care, 

 before the trunnions and fastenings for the final lift were placed 

 around it." 



However, it has also been stated,' probably in reference to a sub- 

 sequent treatment, that the same monolith "was treated, in 1879, 

 by Mr. Henry Browning, with a solution of gum dammar dissolved 

 in benzin, to which a small amount of beeswax was added, and a 

 very small quantity of corrosive sublimate." 



(2). The Paris Obelisk. — After its removal from Luxor to Paris, 

 in 183fi, this monolith lay untouched for 22 months, while its pedes- 

 tal was being quarried from a granite outcrop in the western part 

 of France. After its erection, "as a protection against a climate so 

 much more rigorous than that of its native land, the surface of the 

 obelisk was covered with a concentrated solution of caoutchouc."' 



1 Trans. N. Y. Acad. Sci., V (1886), 67, and Gorringe, op. cit., 107. 



2 Gorringe, idem, 92-93. 



