Study of the New York Obelisk as a Decayed Boulder. 131 



very difiScult, by the lead which had been poured into the mortices 

 in the pedestal while molten.'" From this it may be inferred that 

 he found the crabs attached only to the pedestal. 



In December, 1879, while the shaft, carefully sheathed in heavy 

 plank, was being turned on enormous trunnions, supported on steel 

 towers, a little accident occurred, which he has thus described :' 

 " Immediately followino- a creak louder than any previous one, the 

 motion was suddenly arrested ; then there was a sharp snap — one 

 of the tackles had parted. Instantly the order was given to slack 

 the other tackle rapidly, using it merely to retard the motion and 

 not to arrest it ; but the man attending the fall had lost his wits, 

 and, instead of slackening, he held it fast and it very soon broke. 

 The obelisk was at that moment about half over. It moved slowly 

 at first, and then more and more rapidly, until it struck the stack of 

 timbers, rebounded twice, and came to rest in the position" shown 

 in an illustration. "There was intense excitement; many of the 

 Arabs and Greeks about the grounds had fled precipitously, when 

 the obelisk began to move rapidly; and when it rested on the stack 

 of timber uninjured, there arose a prolonged cheer. . . . The two 

 upper tiers of plank were crushed; aside from this, no loss or injury 

 to any person or anything resulted from the successful accomplish- 

 ment of the first essential feature of the work of removal." 



Later, during the launching of the caisson which enclosed the 

 Obelisk, its safety was endangered in the surf by a rising storm, 

 and Gorringe allowed the caisson to fill, in order to diminish its 

 buoyancy and prevent it from thumping heavily on its ways. The 

 shaft thus remained immersed in salt water for several days. 



After the monolith had reached the floating dock, and had been 

 at last safely introduced into the hull of the Steamer "Dessoug," 

 Gorringe states, "to obviate all risk of breaking the Obelisk by the 

 working of the ship, it was placed on a bed of Adriatic white pine, 

 very spongy and soft, and ten feet of the extremities left without 

 support. To prevent it from moving laterally, a system of hori- 

 zontal, diagonal, and vertical shores were fitted into the hiero- 

 glyphs, and driven against stringer-pieces of the steamer's hull."* 

 During the voyage of 37 days, some stormy weather was encount- 

 ered, both in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. In spite of all 



1 Gorringe, idem, 14. * Gorringe, idem, 15. 



3 Gorringe, idem, 27. 



