ADDRESS. Ixxi 



position they were to occupy ; for the same reason the hardest and most 

 costly materials were chosen, calling for further improvement in the metal 

 forming the tools required to work them. The working of metals was 

 further perfected in making images of the gods, and in adorning their shrines 

 with the more precious and ornamental sorts. 



The earliest buildings of stone to which we can assign a date, with any 

 approach to accuracy, are the pyramids of Gizeh. To their builders they 

 were sacred buildings, even more sacred than their temples or tcmplo 

 palaces. They were built to preserve the royal remains, until, after a lapse 

 of 3000 years, which we have reason to believe was the period assigned, the 

 spirit which had once animated the body should reenter it*. Although 

 built 5000 years ago, the masonry of the Pyramids could not be surpassed in 

 these days ; all those who have seen and examined them, as I myself have 

 done, agree in this; moreover, the design is perfect for the purpose for 

 which they were intended, above all to endure. The building of pyramids 

 in Egypt continued for some ten centuries, and from 60 to 70 still remain ; 

 but none are so admirably constructed as those of Gizeh. Still many 

 contain enormous blocks of granite from 30 to 40 feet long, weighing more 

 than 300 tons, and display the greatest ingenuity in the way in which the 

 sepulchral chambers are constructed and concealed f. 



The genius for dealing with large masses in buUding did not pass away 

 with the pyramid-builders in Egypt; but their descendants continued to 

 gain in mechanical knowledge, judging from the enormous blocks which they 

 handled with precision. When the command of human labour was unlimited, 

 the mere transport of such blocks as the statue of Eameses the Great, for 

 instance, which weighed over 800 tons, need not so greatly excite our 

 wonder ; and we know how such blocks were moved from place to place, for 

 it is shown on the wall-paintings of tombs of the period which still remain. 



But as the weight of the mass to be moved is increased, it becomes no longer 

 a mere question of providing force in the shape of human bone and muscle. 

 In moving in the last century the block which now forms the base for the 

 statue of Peter the Great at St. Petersburg, and which weighs 1200 tons, the 

 necessary force could be applied, but great difficulty was experienced in sup- 

 porting it, and the iron balls on which it was proposed to roll the block along 

 were crushed, and a harder metal had to be substituted:]:. To facilitate the 

 transport of material, the Egyptians made solid causeways of granite from the 

 Nile to the Pyramids ; and in the opinion of Herodotus, who saw them, the 

 causeways were more wonderful works than the Pyramids themselves §. 



* Ferguason's 'History of Architecture,' vol. i. p. 83; Wilkinsoivs 'Ancient Egyptians,' 

 2nd series, vol. ii. p. 444. 



t Vyse's ' Pyramids of Gizeh,' vol. iii. pp. 16, 41, 45, 57. 

 + Eondelet's ' Traite de I'Art de Batir,' vol. i. p. 73. 

 § Herodotus, bk. ii. cap. 124. 



