CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE. 623 



said to be in better preservation than the standing JSTeedlfe at Alexandria; 

 it has happily escaped serious injury from its fall; and its entombment in 

 the sands of the seashore and the rubbish of building material would seem 

 to have been favorable to its preservation. The sides most injured ate those 

 to landward, and the agents of mischief the sharp pellets which ride in the 

 sand storms so common in Egypt, that drive their sharp and piercing atoms 

 against an opposing surface with the fury of musket shot." 



It is worth notice, in passing, that the present is just the 1900th year 

 since the Augustan ceremonial. Of course, when that happened Cleopatra 

 had been dead seven or eight years. But against the suggestion that she 

 had, therefore, no right to give her name to the Needles, it is plausibly 

 urged that she might have designed their removal from Heliopolig, the Bibli- 

 cal On, where the inscriptions on them say they originally stood, as she 

 may have designed the temple of Csesar itself. Prof. Wilson dwells on the 

 interesting associations of our monolith with On and with the Land of 

 Groshen, in which the metropolis of Egyptian learning stood, and so with 

 the history of the Hebrew patriarchs and people, with their great leader, 

 Moses. Moreover, under the shadow of its now lone obelisk, the oldest in 

 the world, tradition locates the Holy Family. " Originally there were three 

 ])airs of obelisks at On, but of these only one single obelisk remains, almost 

 tlie sole surviving relic of that ancient city." Prof. Wilson thinks it was 

 erected nearly 5000 years ago. The other four obelisks were all set up by 

 Thothmes III. and his family. '• Two of these four were called Pharaoh's 

 Needles, and now serve to decorate the cities of Constantinople and Eome, 

 while the remaining two were transferred to Alexandria to become cele- 

 brated as Cleopatra's Needles." It is plain "Our Egyptian Obelisk" need 

 not be ashamed of its lineage. Nowhere in the land of obelisks, not even 

 at sacred Thebes, did there ever stand a finer or more interesting group of 

 these monoliths, all symbols of the Sun-god's rays, than the three pairs 

 which guarded the p3:^lon8 of his temple in his own city, On. Of the six, 

 but one has disappeared. Its surviving sister, the noble shaft of Usertasen 

 I, who heads the grandly historical Twelfth Dynasty, still keeps lonely 

 watch on the spot. /Of the other four, all bearing the name of the greatest 

 conqueror of the hew empire down to Alexander, not excepting Eamses- 

 Sesostris, two are divided between old and new Kome, the third marks the 

 site of the old part of Alexander's Egyptian capital, and we are now cran- 

 ing our necks in expectation of the arrival of its fellow in the greatest city 

 0% the modern world. — London Times. 



Eaising Eoses from Seed.— To raise roses from seed, take the seed 

 when fully ripe, separate them from the pulp, mix them with moist sand, 

 put them in a little box or flower-pot, and then place them in the cellar, 

 taking care that they are kept moist all winter. In the spring sow sand 

 and all in a common hot-bed, and when the plants are about an inch high 

 transplant them into light, rich soil, shading them till well rooted. 



