12 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE, 
exactly with the breadth of its face, or the height of the shaft to any fixed relation 
with the width at the base; and there is a like disregard in the height of the pyra- 
midion (the pyramid-like apex), which, however, was high-peaked and never 
stunted. Nevertheless we may assume that the shaft varied from eight to nine 
diameters high up to the pyramidion, which itself was from sixty to seventy-five 
hundredths of the breadth at the base. The four sides or faces of the obelisk were 
usually square, but occasionally they were convex; a fact proving the nice per- 
ception for effect which prevailed in the minds of the Egyptians, as thus the light 
was much softer upon the surface, the shades less crude, and the angles less cut- 
ting. Some of the huge blocks intended for obelisks came from the quarry mis- 
shapen at the smaller end, and to remedy such a defect they covered it with a 
metal capping of the required shape rather than reduce its length by cutting off 
the rugged portion. The summit of the Luxor obelisk, now in Paris, was irregu- 
lar in shape and quite rough, and must originally have been capped with metal. 
Usually, obelisks had one, two, or three vertical hieroglyphs. It may be assumed 
that only one series was intended by the original Pharaoh; but it appears that his 
son, successor, or successors, added a line on each side; and it is remarkable that 
earlier hieroglyphs were much deeper cut than the more recent ones. Mariette 
Bey, the Egyptologist, mentions the fact that the faces of obelisks were sometimes 
gilded, the hieroglyphs themselves retaining their original color and actual surface 
of the granite. On the subject of the dies, pedestals, and steps upon which the 
monoliths were anciently raised we have little information, for the bottom portions 
of those now left standing are encumbered and surrounded by huge fallen blocks 
of stone, preventing their full size from being seen. 
All of the large monoliths were of pink granite taken from the quarries of 
Syene. The position of these quarries must have been of the utmost importance 
in facilitating the application of that fine material. Situated below the cataracts, 
when once the masses were extracted from their beds, no obstruction presented 
itself in their course down the river to their destination, whether to Memphis, 
Heliopolis, or the delta. Twenty-seven of the forty-two obelisks now known 
were from Syene, and they are doubtless the largest. An unextracted block still 
remains at Syene, 95 feet long by 11 feet in diameter, with the quarrymen’s marks 
on it. Sir Gardner Wilkinson states that the final operation of extraction, when 
three sides of a mass had been worked around, was by cutting a groove or channel 
about a couple of inches in depth, and kindling a fire along its whole extent. 
When the stone was intensely heated, cold water was poured into the groove, and 
the block detached itself with a clear fracture. Wedges of wood were also inserted, 
saturated with water, then exposed to heat, and the expansion rent the mass asun- 
der. Thus detached it was drawn down to the river, where it was incased, or upon 
a galley or raft floated down the Nile to near the spot where it was ultimately to 
be set up. From the river bank it was then hauled up to the Propylea in front 
of which it was to stand. There are no hieroglyphics or paintings extant to show 
us how the obelisk was raised and placed in its final position. That this was a 
