NO. 6 GREAT STONE MONUMENTS FEWKES \"J 



Similar perforated stones, called in Germany " helfensteins," are 

 interpreted as connected with a future life in the sepulture they 

 enclose. Perforated slabs of rock of unknown significance occur in 

 pueblo graves near ruins along the Little Colorado in Arizona. 



Dolmens have been found in Korea, and others constructed of 

 unhewn stones have been discovered in Kiusia and in the south part 

 of the island Yeso. Some of these Japanese dolmens are two cham- 

 bered and have stone floors and passageways. 



Palgrave mentions in an account of his travels that he saw in the 

 Kaseem, central Arabia, enormous stone boulders placed perpendicu- 

 larly and he also records having observed others arranged in curves 

 as if they once formed a part of an immense circle, differing but little 

 from Stonehenge or other European dolmens and cromlechs. 



The artificial monolith includes all single stone monuments of size 

 worked by human hands, from a rude hewn slab set on end to a finely 

 carved obelisk inscribed with hieroglyphs. Some of these stones 

 are enormous in size, but how they were cut from the quarries and 

 transported long distances are facts difficult to explain with our 

 limited knowledge even of the Egyptians, whose every art and craft 

 is illustrated on the walls of tombs and temples by picture writing. 

 Many of these large stones were apparently moved without the use of 

 machinery, yet we find this accomplished without leaving any traces 

 of roads or highways. To indicate the magnitude of the work of 

 transporting these great stones consider the amount of labor in trans- 

 porting the monolithic pillars of the Treasury building in Washington, 

 which are among the largest single stone blocks in the United States, 

 and have been calculated to weigh 38 tons ; some of the Egyptian 

 obelisks weigh 300 tons, or nearly eight times as much. 1 



The columns or pillars of the Cathedral ' of St. John the Divine 

 in New York will be even larger than the monoliths of the Treasury 

 building. 



1 The monument of Emperor Alexander I, standing in front of the winter 

 palace in St. Petersburg, probably the most remarkable monument of artificial 

 monolith in existence, is a cylindrical pillar of one solid piece of granite 

 78 feet high and 12 feet in diameter. 



3 Granite monoliths are being quarried at Vinal Haven, Maine, for the cathe- 

 dral being built at Morningside Park, New York. Thirty-two of these columns 

 are required to be 54 feet long and 6 feet in diameter, each weighing 160 tons, 

 or two-thirds as much as Cleopatra's Needle in Central Park. For dressing 

 and polishing these granite columns they are mounted in a giant lathe and 

 revolved so as to bring their exterior surface first against cutting tools and 

 afterward on polishing materials. This lathe is 86 feet long and weighs 135 tons, 

 and the rough stone which it reduces to dimension, weighs at first as much as 



