1853] WRITINGS OF JOSEPH HENRY. 321 



I know we are frequently referred to the immense masses 

 of stone transported and wrought by ancient art, which are 

 found among the ruins of Baalbec and Thebes, and are fre- 

 quently told that the management of these would far tran- 

 scend the skill and power of modern engineers. Such asser- 

 tions are however rather intended to convey an idea of the 

 impression produced upon the beholder of these venerable 

 ruins than a declaration of absolute truth. As a sufficient 

 illustration of this we may mention the fact that in New 

 York large buildings of brick and stone are moved from 

 place to place while the inhabitants remain undisturbed 

 within ; or we may point to the Menai Strait tubular bridge, 

 a structure of cast-iron several hundred tons in weight, sus- 

 pended in mid-air over a chasm more than a hundred feet 

 deep. 



The pyramid of Cheops is said to have employed the power 

 of 100,000 men for twenty years in its erection ; but, vast as 

 is this pile, were the steam-engines employed in one of our 

 large cities directed to the task of rearing one of equal mag- 

 nitude the whole would be accomplished in a few weeks. 



I have said that no arts of importance have been lost, but 

 perhaps this assertion is rather too general. There is one 

 which may be considered an exception : I allude to the an- 

 cient art possessed by the few of enslaving and brutalizing 

 the many, the art by which a single individual, invested 

 with the magic of kingly power, was enabled to compel 

 thousands of his subjects, through the course of a long reign, 

 like beasts of burden, to haul materials and heap up huge 

 piles of stone, which might transmit to posterity the fact that 

 a worm like himself had lived and died. The pyramids of 

 Egypt, venerable as they are with the age of accumulated 

 centuries, are melancholy monuments of human degrada- 

 tion, of human vanity and cruelty. 



There are certain processes of thought which require indi- 

 vidual exertion rather than combined effort for their devel- 

 opment. There are certain arts in which perfection depends 

 on the genius and skill of the individual rather than on the 

 condition of the race. Such are oratory, poetry, painting, 

 21 



