CLEOPATRA! S NEEDLE . 311 



SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY, 



■^^CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE. "- 



The obelisk known as "Cleopatra's IsTeedle" is of great historical inter- 

 est, because it had sculptured upon it the history of a man who quarried it 

 from the old quarries of Syene (the modern Assouan), and the reason why 

 he quarried it. There were few monuments extant, so far as we know, 

 which could, like this, date back 3,400 year. In addition to its historical 

 interest, however, the obelisk in question was of interest to engineers, 

 in consideration of the means which were resorted to in order to 

 quarry and transport in safety such a huge monolith. Cleopatra's JSTeedle 

 was not alone among obelisks, and possessed no peculiar features. In point 

 of size, it stood only about eighth or ninth on the list of obelisks with 

 which we were acquainted. The largest of which we knew was the La- 

 teran Obelisk in Eome, which was brought by the Eomans, with about 

 twenty smaller ones, from Egypt, as the most curious objects they could lay 

 hold of to decorate their imperial city. The Lateran Obelisk had a height 

 of something like ninety feet, arid was ten feet six inches square at the base, 

 whereas Cleopatra's Needle was only sixty-nine feet three inches high, with 

 a base of seven feet square. Ten years ago, when the lecturer was in Egypt, 

 his attention was especially directed to this obelisk, which he saw lying in 

 the sand on the shore at Alexandria. He dug around it and under it for 

 the purpose of examining it, and it appeared to be little the worse for wear 

 except that two of its sides were somewhat weatherworn, and did not re- 

 tain the polish which still existed on the other two .sides. JSTevertheless, the 

 hieroglyphic inscriptions were quite distinct enough to be read by the learned 

 in these matters, and it therefore retained its history as clearly as on the 

 day when it was set up by Thothmes III., circa 1400 B. C. Egypt in those 

 days was the leading country of the world, not only in arts and commerce,, 

 but in learning and science, and to her great university of Heliopolis came 

 Strabo, Pliny, Herodotus, and others. Thothmes went to the old quarries 

 of Syene for the material of his obelisks. From these quarries for genera- 

 tions before him the Egyptians had been accustomed to sculpture those 

 great blocks of granite which even to this day were our wonder and admir- 

 ation. The granite of Syene was micaceous and somewhat coarse in tex- 

 ture and pinkish in color, and in the quarries, to the present day, there ex- 

 isted an obelisk, half cut out, much larger than any other we knew of. 

 That obelisk, if it had ever been completely quarried and set up, would 

 have been ninety-six feet high and about eleven feet square at the base. 

 The proportion of height of these obelisks to the square of base was gen- 



*A paper read before the Civil and Mechanical Engineers' Society. 



