1841.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



S9 



ENGINEERING WORKS OF THE ANCIENTS, No. 2. 



Continuing our notes from Herodotus, the present paper will prin- 

 cipally relate to the Egyptians, whose works like those of the Baby- 

 lonians, have an interest for us, as giving rise also to a school on which 

 Greek [engineering was founded. It is one of the most ancient 

 of which we possess authentic monuments and records. The Egyptians 

 like the Babylonians principally devoted themselves to hydraulic en- 

 gineering, in which they made great progress ; their other works also 

 aftbrd convincing proofs of their attainments in other departments of 

 the art. The account of Egypt in Herodotus might be almost termed 

 a history of engineering in that country, where it was called into play 

 as one of the great instruments of national advancement, the exploits 

 of a prince consisting as much in the works he executed, as in the 

 victories which he obtained. This is one of the features of a system 

 of polity, to which Egypt was indebted for great social progress, and 

 an exemption! from many of the evils which afflicted surrounding na- 

 tions. If from moral causes Egypt never attained the intellectual 

 perfection of the Greeks, yet by the extent of its public works the 

 country was brought into a high state of cultivation and productive- 

 ness, so as to make it for centuries the granary of Europe. It was less 

 owing perhaps to the fertility of the soil, than to the facilities atibrded 

 as to internal communication, that the resources of Egypt were made 

 so extensively available. 



CAUSEWAY OF CHEOPS. 



Cheops, it is said by our author, degenerated into extreme profligacy 

 of conduct, and oppressing the Egyptians in every way, he proceeded 

 to make them labour servilely for himself. Some he compelled to hew 

 stones in the quarries of the Arabian (query) mountains, and drag them 

 to the banks of the Nile; others were appointed to receive them in 

 vessels and transport them to a mountain in Libya. For this service 

 a [hundred thousand men were employed, who were relieved every 

 three months. Ten years were consumed in the hard labour of form- 

 ing the road, through which these stones were to be drawn ; a work 

 cited by Herodotus as equal in difficidty to the pyramid itself. This 

 causeway was live stadia in length, forty cubits wide, and its extreme 

 height thirty-two cubits, the whole of polished marble, adorned with 

 the figures of animals. So far our author, a modern account by Po- 

 cocke and Norden, says that there is still a causeway running part of 

 the way from the canal which passes about two miles north of the 

 pyramids. This extends about a thousand yards in length, and twenty 

 feet wide, built of hewn freestone. It is strengthened on either side 

 with semicircular buttresses, about fourteen feet diameter, and thirty 

 feet apart. There are sixty-one of these buttresses, beginning from 

 the north. Sixty feet farther it turns to the west for a little way, then 

 there is a bridge of about twelve arches, twenty feet wide, built on 

 piers that are ten feet wide. Above one hundred yards farther there 

 is another bridge, beyond which the causeway continues, about one 

 hundred yards to the south, ending about a mile from the pyramids 

 where the ground is higher. The reason for building this causeway 

 and keeping it in repair seems to be the lowness of the country, the 

 water lying on it a great while. 



THE GREAT PYRAMID. — THE MIDDLE PYRAMID. — THIRD PYRA.^^D. ' 



As we are rather giving common-place notes from the individual 

 authors, than complete accounts of the works, we have less compunc- 

 tion in copying what Herodotus says of the much-written subject of 

 the pyramids. Having described the causeway just mentioned, our 

 author goes on to say that a considerable time was consumed in making 

 the vaults of the hill on which the pyramids are erected. These he 

 intended as a place of burial for himself, and were in an island which 

 he formed by introducing the waters of the Nile. The pyramid itself 

 was a work of twenty years : it is of a square form ; every front is 

 eight plethra long, and as many in height ; the stones very skilfully 

 cemented, and none of them of less dimensions than thirty feet. The 

 ascent of the pyramid was regularly graduated by what some call steps 

 and others altars. Having finished the first flight, they elevated the 

 stones to the second by the aid of machines constructed of short pieces 

 of wood (supposed by some to be the pulley) ; from the second, by a 

 similar engine, they were raised to the third, and so on to the summit. 

 Thus there were as many machines as there were regular divisions in 

 the ascent of the pyramid, though in fact there might be only one, 

 which being easily manageable, might be removed from one range of 

 the building to another, as often as occasion made it necessary; both 

 modes have been told me, says Herodotus, and I know not which best 

 deserves credit. The summit of the pyramid was first of all finished 

 off; descending hence, they regularly completed the whole. Upon 

 the outside were inscribed in Egyptian characters, the various sums 



of money expendetl in the progress of the work for the radishes, onions 

 and garlic consumed by the artificers. 



The middle pyramid, attributed to the daughter of Cheops, is stated 

 to have an elevation on each side of one hundred and fifty feet. 



Chephren, the brother of Cheops, is mentioned as the builder of the 

 third pyramid, which was less than his brother's. It has no subter« 

 raneous chambers, nor any channel for the admission of the Nile. The 

 ascent is entirely of Ethiopian marble of divers colours, but it is not so 

 high as the larger pyramid by forty feet. The pyramid stands on the 

 same hill as that of Cheops, which hill is near one hundred feet high. 



DOCKS. 



Psammitichus, as a reward for services rendered in war, conferred 

 on the lonians and Cariaus certain lands, which were termed the Camp, 

 immediately opposite to each other, and separated by the Nile. They 

 were the first foreigners whom the Egyptians received among them; 

 and " within my remembrance, in the places which they formerly occu- 

 pied, the docks for ships, and vestiges of their buildings, might be 

 seen," continues our author. 



CANALS. — RED SEA. — SLUICE. — BOLBITIN'IAX. — BUCOLIC. — MEMPHIS. 



AN ENGINEERING KING. — CIVIL ENGINEERS. — ENGINEERING THREE OR. 

 FOUR THOUSAND YEARS AGO. — SURVEYORS. 



Pharaoh Necos, the son of Psammitichus, was, according to Hero- 

 dotus, the prince who first commenced the celebrated canal leading to 

 the Red Sea, which Darius, King of Persia, afterwards continued. The 

 account of Herodotus is this: — The length of the canal is equal to a 

 four days journey, and it is wide enough to admit two triremes 

 abreast. The water enters it from the Nile, a little above the city 

 Bubastis; it terminated in the Erythrean Sea, not far fi'ttm Patumos, 

 an Arabian town. They began to sink this canal in that part of Egypt, 

 which is nearest Arabia. Contiguous to it is a mountain, which 

 stretches towards Memphis, and contains quarries of stone. Com- 

 mencing at the foot of this, it extends from west to east, through a 

 considerable tract of country, and where a mountain opens to the south 

 is discharged into the Arabian gulph. From the northern to the 

 southern, or as it is generally called, the Erythrean Sea, the shortest 

 passage is over Jlount Cassius, which divides Egypt from Syria, 

 wdience to the Arabian gulph is exactly a thousand stadia. The way 

 by the canal, on account of the difierent bends, is considerably longer. 

 In the prosecution of this work under Necos, no less than one hundred 

 and twenty thousand Egyptians perished. He at length desisted from 

 his undertaking, being admonished by an oracle, that all his labour 

 would turn to tlie advantage of a barbarian. Diodorus Siculus gives 

 an account which brings the progress of the work down to the time of 

 the Greek kings; he says: — The canal reaching from the Pelusian 

 mouth of the Nile to tlie Arabian gulph and Red Sea was made by 

 hands — Necos, the son of Psammitichus, was the first that attempted 

 it, and after him Darius the Persian carried on the work somewhat 

 farther, but left it at length unfinished ; for he was informed by some, 

 that in thus digging through the isthmus he would cause Egypt to be 

 deluged, for they showed him that the Red Sea was higher than the 

 land of Egypt. Afterwards Ptolemy, the Second finished the canal, 

 and in the most proper place contrived a sluice for confining the water, 

 which was opened when wanted to sail through, and was immediately 

 closed again, the use of it answering this purpose extremely well. 

 The river flowing through this canal is called the Ptolomean, from the 

 name of its author. Where it discharges itself into the sea it has a 

 city named Arsiniie. So far our authors ; we may farther mention that 

 the site of this canal, although it could not be found by Norden, was 

 distinctly ascertained by the scientific commission attached to the 

 French array, and that plans have been proposed by Mehemet Ali for 

 restoring. 



Of the seven mouths by which the Nile disgorges itself into the 

 sea, two are stated to have been produced by art, the Bolbitinian anti 

 the Bucolic,* a circumstance that shows the importance which the 

 Egyptians attached to ready access with the sea, as a means of pro- 

 moting their maritime commerce. This, fostered as it was by the 

 extent of inland navigation, was, whether in the hands of foreigners or 

 natives, carried on upon a large scale, embracing not only domestic 

 productions, but also the transit trade with India and the East, of 

 which Egypt was so long the channel, and the value of wdiich, as our 

 subsequent observations will show, was appreciated at an early period. 

 It is true that these two canals were also required for agricultural 

 purposes, but we think we do not err in attributing also another mo- 

 tive. The order in which the seven branches of the Nile lie from 



Herodotus Euterpe. 



