VOL. LVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 473 



pedestal was of a bad and weak masonry, composed of small and great stones of 

 different sorts, and absolutely unable to sustain so great a weight ; I therefore 

 easily concluded such pedestal not originally belonging to the pillar. I attempted 

 to get out a stone, which I did without trouble, and discovered the pedestal to 

 be hollow. After some time, I mean during the course of many days, I made 

 an opening wide enough to enter it ; when within it, you will judge how much 

 I was surprised to find this prodigious mass of granite, stood, as on a pivot, on 

 a reversed obelisk, as I then believed it was, only 5 feet square. Curious to 

 know the length of the obelisk, I began to move the earth on one of its sides, 

 but my surprize increased much when I found, after moving a few inches of the 

 soil, that the obelisk was not entire, this pivot being only 4 feet and one inch 

 thick. It is seated on a rock ; the stone is of an extreme hardness, and almost 

 a petrification or rather conglutination of many different stones, but all vitres- 

 cent. I never met with any stone of this kind any where, except with one small 

 piece on the plain of tVie Mommies ; I broke a piece off it, which Lord Bute 

 has ; a small piece too of the pillar was sent, that gentlemen may be convinced 

 it is of red granite, and not a composition, as some have imagined. 



This part of the obelisk is covered with hieroglyphics, which are reversed ; a 

 plain proof the pillar was not erected while they were held sacred characters. 

 Convinced, therefore, that it was not of the antiquity one would suppose it, 

 from being called of Pompey, I visited it several times, to see if it might not be 

 possible to find out something that would give room for a reasonable conjecture, 

 in honour of whom, or at what time, it was erected. From the inscription I 

 could discover nothing; it is on the west face of the base, but so much injured 

 by time, and I may say too by malice, for the mark of an instrument are 

 plainly discovered effacing it, that one can but imperfectly make out some Greek 

 characters, so imperfectly indeed that no one word can be found. 



At length, observing that the cement, or mortar, which closes the small sepa- 

 ration of the shaft from the base, was quite destroyed in one part, I was curious 

 to see if any thing was made use of within, to fasten or tie the shaft to the base; 

 I saw there was : being desirous to know if it was lead, and if so, if it was not 

 of that pure sort, of which we still meet with some few medals ; I endeavoured 

 with a pretty large hanger to cut off a small piece of the grapple ; there was a 

 great number of lizards which had taken shelter there, and which ran out on my 

 introducing the hanger. I then discovered a dark spot, at the distance of more 

 than a foot, within the circumference of the pillar; which, by striking it with 

 the hanger, I found was something stuck fast to the base ; after striking it seve- 

 ral times, I detached it from its place, and it proved a medal of Vespasian in fine 

 order, aat. KAIS. IEBA. OAESn. The reverse is, Victoria gradiens ; Dex- 

 tra spieas, sinis. palmam. [This medal was shewn to the k. s.] 



VOL. xii. 3 P 



