188 Teansaction's of the American Institute. 



largest stone weighs 1,275 tons. The quarry from which tliese stones 

 were taken was within a mile of the temple. The Monoliths of 

 Egypt are from two to three liundred tons, and a few of 

 TOO. The obelisk of Lnxor, now in Paris, is of Syene granite, 

 and weighs 250 tons.* The covering of a tomb at Ravenna 

 is a single stone of thirty-four feet diameter and four feet thick, 

 and weighed when quarried 1,000 tons. The " goodly stones " 

 of tlie temple, to which the Disciples called our Saviour's attention, 

 according to Josephus, were of the " whitest marble, upward of sixty- 

 seven feet long seven feet high, and nine feet broad," and therefore 

 must have weighed 350 tons. Eusebius, a profane writer, says that 

 the Lieutenant of Titus tore up the foundations of this temple, so 

 that Christ's remarkable prediction, " That not one stone should be 

 left upon another," was literally fulfilled within fifty years after it 

 was delivered. I cannot better illustrate the comparison of modern 

 with ancient engineering than by describing, from the most trust worth j 

 sources, the probable method of constructing the Pyramids, having 

 particular reference to that at Gizeh, or, as it is often called, after its 

 builder, " The Cheops." The engineers of that day had iron only in 

 its malleable form, and did not possess the art of converting it into 

 steel, and thus obtaining its high hardening power. They used other 

 metals and alloys, chiefly bronze, or copper, hardened by tin or zinc. 

 They doubtless split out their large columns from the solid ledges of 

 rocks, like those of the Syene granite, with fire and water, as we often 

 now see a farmer split up a hard and troublesome bowlder. They 

 worked these stone roughly into shape with their bronze tools, and 

 subsequently by the tedious process of rubbing down the surfaces 

 with stones of still firmer texture. This Pyramid was chiefly made 

 from a soft limestone obtained from the opposite side of the Nile, 

 but some of them came from quarries more than 100 miles distant. 

 The smaller stone were hauled on land by oxen on sledges, and the 

 remains of rude wooden tramways are still extant. The large stones 

 were hauled by men, who could work in concert, to the sound of 

 music, as shown in some of the Egyptian drawings. By calculation 

 I find that to haul a stone of 300 tons, on level ground, 1,000 men 

 would be required. Herodotus mentions one column at Sais in Egypt, 

 which by calculation weighed 71 S tons, which, he says, required 2,000 

 men for three years, to haul it from the quarry, about 100 miles 

 distant. Our modern wooden scafibldiug, or machinery for hoisting 



* The French engineers were three years transporting it fiom ThebcB to Parla. 



