S2 



NA TV RE 



[May 24, 1894 



built at the head of the first cataract, and drown the temple of 

 •Phil.x. 



" Admilling this fact to the full, I still consider the Assuii 

 site to be so superior to any other, that if any means could be 

 found for obviating the diflicully which attaches to this temple, 

 I think the subject well worth the consideration of the Egyptian 

 Government, evtn although it involved additional cost to the 

 project. On p. 36 of his report, Mr. Willcocks suggests the 

 possibility of removing the temple of Philxfrom its present site, 

 taking it op stone by stone, and rebuilding it on the adjacent 

 island of Bigeh, where it would be well above the highest water 

 level of the reservoir. I cannot say whether it would be possible 

 to do this without injury to the temple. If so doing would cause 

 any injury, or alteration of any kind to it, I should recommend 

 the abandonment of the .ALSSuan dam altogether. .\ny work 

 which cau-ed either partial damage to, or the flooding of this 

 beautiful temple, would be rightly considered by the whole 

 civilised world as an act of b.\rbarism. Moreover, it would be 

 an act not absolutely necessitated by the circumstances, for I 

 repeat that we have other possible, though somewhat inferior, 

 sites uL'on which to construct dams. 



" If the removal of PhiKe temple is, however, only a question 

 of expenditure, the subject at once commands atieritum. In 

 this matter I turn naturally to Mr. T. de Morgan, the able 

 Director of the Department of .■Vnliquilies in Eg)p'. If it is 

 possible to remove the tem .le, and rebuild it upon the adjac.-nt 

 island exactly as it stands at present, we may rely on his ability 

 to do so ; and I ask that his opinion as to the removal and re- 

 construction of Phila; temple be obtained before the project for 

 the Assuao dam be altogether rejected. 



" Were the removal of the temple to be successfully carried 

 out, I cannot myself see that it would be an act of vamlalism, 

 which, as I read it, is a term meaning the wanton destruction 

 of interesting relics. In this case there would be no question 

 of wanton destruction. The Government of E^ypt would duly 

 weigh on one side, the advaniages to the country of the safest 

 and most economical dam which c mid be constructed north of 

 Wady Ilalf.i, and, on the other, the sentiment which clusters 

 round the site of the present temple, and objects to its removal 

 even if it could be done without injury. Finding the advant- 

 ages to the country to outweigh the sentiment, it would pro- 

 ceed to carry out the woik with a religious regard for every 

 detail, and ilirough the agency of the competent staff of ihe 

 Department of Antii|uitie5. 



" Removals somewhat similar to that now proposed have 

 been successfully carried out. Mr. Willcocks mentions in his 

 report havin:; himself, when at K'lme, been a witness lo the 

 dismantling and rebuilding of the most ancient existing bridge 

 over the Tiber by Italian engineers. Civilised nauons in recent 

 times have removed from their origini! sites, and set up in 

 other countries, interesting and valuable monuments. The 

 Elgin marbles taken frojii the .'\cropolis and deposited in the 

 British .Museum, afford an examplr, and so also do the Luxor 

 obeli-k in the Place de la Conoide, and Cleopatra's needle on 

 the Thames Embankment. These records of the past have 

 been removed from their historical surroundings, and set up 

 amongst others with which they are not in keeping. We, on 

 the contrary, prompted by a desire lo benefit the country, sug- 

 gest the removal of an ancient building from one site on the 

 Nile to another whi>.h is but a few hundred yards distant. We 

 reeling it exactly as it stands to il.iy, and on an island 

 ■-• of the great like which we h >pe lo create, where 

 .. .. . .. ..m a beautiful and appropriate object in the land- 



»C«pr. ' 



To US it seems cieir that with such .1 case as the 

 Kgyptian engineers hxvc made out for the increased 

 water supply, it is certain th it a dam will b." built some- 

 where, and, to be iiure precise, unless the frontiers of 

 Kgypt arc enlarged, between Wady Haifa and .\ssu."in. 

 .Assuan, F'hilx, and Kalabsheh have each been suggested, 

 and in either case the memorials of antiquity along a 

 long reach of the river will be necessarily destroyed. 

 This being so, there is room for an attempt to carry 

 to a completion the work begun by the French Mxpcdition 

 of 1798, and continued by l.cpsius in 1844, by making an 

 English survey of the Nile between Hhila; and Wady 

 Haifa. Archi'ologists associated with engineers in such 

 a work as this would certainly be a more plcisant sight 

 to gods an J men thin when indul^inj in charges of 



NO. 1282, VOL. 50] 



" vandalism " and the like ; and be it remembered no 

 amount of money voted by Parliament, or by the 

 Egyptian Government, no munificence of archaeologists 

 and others, with a view of dealing with the case of Philae 

 alone, will be of avail in final mitigation if a dam is 

 to be bailt tinyw/icre. To consider PhiLx alone would 

 convict us of a philistinism by the side of which the 

 " vandilism " of the engineers were small indeed ! On 

 the other hand, when such a survey as that suggested 

 has been coinpleted ; when what Maspero has called 

 I'htstoirc iiiiilirieile of every temp'e has been investigated ; 

 every inscription copied, a'ld every detail photographed, 

 dam or no dam we shall be intinitcly better off from the 

 scientific point of vie.v than we are now or should have 

 been for the next century, if the question of the dam h.id 

 not been raised. 



J. Norman Lockyer. 



THE CEXTENARY OF THE PARIS 

 POL YTECH.XIC SCHOOL. 



T^HE hundredth anniversary of the foundation of 

 -*■ the Polytechnic School of Paris was celebrated on 

 the I7ih, iSth, and 19th of May. 



The 17th, consecrated to the memory of o"d comrades, 

 comprised, in the mornin;j at 10.30, a visit to the tomb 

 of iMonge M. Mercadier, Director of studies at the 

 Polytechnic School, pronounced .Monge's eulogy, and 

 deputations from the Institute, &c., assisted him. At 

 2.30 the President of the Republic visited the school and 

 examined the pupils. .M. Faye made a speech recalling 

 ditierent events of the school. Then a tablet was put up 

 to the memory of the comrades killed by the enemy a. 

 century ago. The iSth was the " ccre'monie des ombres." 

 Lastly theytVt', which took place on the i9lh at the Palais de 

 Trocadoro, constituted, independently of its programme, 

 a special attraction, as ft'tes had never previously been 

 given at night in the 'mmense and magnificent hall. From 

 10 o'clock to midnight more than 3000 people took part 

 in the gala entertainment, which was followed by a ball. 



The palace and Trocadcro Park were brilliantly illu- 

 minated. The entertainment consisted almost entirely of 

 compositions by old pupils of the school. It ended with 

 an apotheosis by .\I. A. Silvestre, during which a reinark- 

 able picture, consecrated by M. Uapam to the glory of 

 the school, was uncovered. 



The eulogy on .Monge, pronounced by M. Mer- 

 cadier, was ot great eloquence. Monge was, as a child, 

 very remarkable. When sixteen he made a plan of his 

 native town, having invented an instrument for deter- 

 mining angles. At the age of twenty-two he had already 

 invented many things. With the aid of an engineering 

 officer he got into the l^ngineering School at Mczicies, 

 where in 1768 he succeeded Bossut as professor of 

 mathematics, and two years later, Nollet in a course of 

 physics. 



He published his great works on " Les Surfaces con- 

 sldcrces d'aprcs leur mode de gc'odration " in the 

 Memoires de I'Academie de Turin. The illustrious La- 

 grange, after reading them, exclaiineil '' Avec son 

 application de I'analyse.'i la repro,eutation des surfaces, ce 

 diablc d'liomme sera immortcl 1 " " Ce diable d'hoimne " 

 was but twenty- five, but — true to prophecy — made him- 

 self immortal. 



In 17S0 .Monge was made professor of hydraulics; at 

 the same time he entered the Academy ol Sciences in 

 the mechanical section. He. lived six months in Paris, 

 then six months at Mczicres, but in 1783, on being made 

 naval examiner, he returned to Paris lor good. 



He was an ardent revolutionist, and was made Minister 

 of that department in 1792, during which time he un- 

 consciously made a true Irlcnd of liuonaparlc. In 1794 

 he helped to found the school in wliich he was a 

 devoted professor. 



