August 21, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



229 



ON LIFTING MONOLITHS. 



Dear Science : It is a subject upon AvMch 

 I have frequently thought, but concerning 

 which I have seen nothing written, that all the 

 megalithic and Cyclopean structures of the 

 world were erected at a time or under circum- 

 stances that may be called pre -mechanical. 

 Neither in America nor in any other part of the 

 world has the account of the moving of a ' big 

 stone ' been written down. There is not a 

 modern machine capable of lifting some of these 

 great stones and herein lies the secret. If you 

 will examine the twine, sennit, cables, ropes of 

 modern savagery, you will at once see that in 

 prehistoric times machinery could not have been 

 utilized in lifting the great monoliths. There 

 was not in all the world, during the periods when 

 the megalithic monuments were being set up a 

 derrick, or chain, or rope, capable of sustaining 

 the weight. In "Washington the stone cutters 

 and contractors do not dream of hoisting the 

 big stones that form the bases of monuments, 

 though they are only pebbles compared with 

 those of Teotihuacan or Baalbec. They move 

 them on rollers, by means of crowbars and 

 capstans turned by men or mules or horses, 

 simple enough to have been familiar to the 

 ancients. But even such affairs would be like 

 rags hitched to a stone weighing a hundred 

 tons or more. There is no use in looking for 

 the machinery for the transportation of the 

 megaliths; there was none. Time was the es- 

 sential factor. A people that could pry up one 

 end of a stone could put a roller under it. If 

 they could move it twenty feet in a day, that 

 would be over a mile in a year. Flotation, crib- 

 work, inclined planes, levers, wedges were the 

 utensils of horizontal and vertical motion. 

 Count Wurmbrand has figured, in Materiaus 

 pour I'histoire primitive et naturelle de 

 I'homme, a company of men in India carrying a 

 menhir upon a framework of wood and bamboo. 

 If two hundred men could get around such a 

 device and each bore two hundred pounds, the 

 total weight could not exceed twenty tons. 

 In studying the history of architecture one is 

 almost justified in thinking that the size of the 

 stone lifted has steadily decreased with the per- 

 fecting of lifting devices. Speed is the point 

 aimed at. To fill a given space the modern 



crane derrick will do the work quicker with 

 small blocks and much cheaper from every 

 point of view than it could be done with a 

 single large block. Without dwelling further 

 upon the economic side, the fact remains that 

 all the megalithic and cyclopean structures of 

 the world were erected by means of the co- 

 operation of human hands, using the simplest 

 mechanical powers and without lifting ma- 

 chines of any kind. 



Otis T. Mason. 



THE 'KANSAN' glacial BOEDER. 



To THE Editor of Science : I have been 

 extending the delimitation of the ' Kansan ' 

 glacial border westward from Lock Haven, 

 Penna., during the past month, and a few of 

 the points noted are of more than ordinary 

 interest. 



The first is regarding the possible existence 

 of two glacial lobes from northeast and north- 

 west which met and neutralized one another 

 over the area north from Bradford, Penna., 

 instead of proceeding south along the level 

 valley of the Tunangeawant. A comparison of 

 the ' Wisconsin ' border of Lewis & Wright 

 and the ' Kansan ' border shows that they ap- 

 proach one another and almost coincide at the 

 New York apex, while they diverge more and 

 more as they extend southward. The ' Kansan ' 

 portion of the eastern lobe is lacking in frag- 

 ments of crystalline rocks, while the same por- 

 tion of the western lobe carries them. A study 

 of the moraines of recession will easily settle 

 the question thus proposed. 



The second is that the ' Kansan ' deposits 

 over the Allegheny region bear out the deduc- 

 tions made from a study of similar deposits in 

 eastern Pennsylvania that there has been but 

 one epoch and that of comparative recency. 

 A great deal of discussion has gone on regard- 

 ing alleged ' high-level gravels ' in the Alle- 

 gheny region. This was on the basis of the 

 ' Wisconsin ' border being the extreme limit of 

 ice action. The work of the past month shows 

 that the Allegheny river was completely cov- 

 ered with ice as far south as Franklin (where 

 the work is now being carried on), and all the 

 localities noted by Messrs. Chamberlin, Wright 

 and others alonsr the tributaries to the Alle- 



