TRANSPORTATION OF HEAVY BODIES BY THE ANCIENTS. 619 



over the openings of structures designed in accordance with the types 

 of ancient architecture, in which the arch, with a keystone, was lacking. 



Especially was this true in an era when the value of time was not 

 considered, and slaves were to be obtained by thousands, at small cost, 

 to toil and sweat to gratify the ambition and perpetuate the fame of 

 kings. 



Happily for our race and time, the crack of the Egyptian slave mas- 

 ter's whip and the weird cries in cadence of the battalions of swarthy 

 laborers, while tugging in unison to draw or hoist the monolith, has 

 given place to the puffing engine and the rumble of revolving wheels; 

 but, mayhap, in the years to come, the engineering methods in vogue 

 at the end of this eventful century will seem almost as crude to those 

 who will practice in the new fields of applied science on the borders of 

 which we seem to stand as these primitive methods of the ancients now 

 appear to us. Whether the anticipations for the future shall be real- 

 ized or not, and proud as we may be of the advances made by discov- 

 ery and invention in our age, we must not forget that the patient per- 

 severance of the engineers of antiquity, who, by brawu and muscle, and 

 unaided by mechanism, built wiser than they knew, have been rewarded 

 by the preservation of an indelible record of their achievements in the 

 material remains of their edifices that have withstood the ravages of 

 centuries. Will fate so favor the engineer of the nineteenth century, 

 versed in the laws of modern science, and skilled in the practice of the 

 mechanic arts? 



Postscript. — Since this paper was published in Cassier's Magazine, 

 there appeared in L'lllustration, Paris, for the first time, an illustrated 

 account of the restoration in 1895-1898 of the Temple of Karnak, the 

 original construction of which was begun by Usertsen I in the twenty- 

 fifth century B. 0., being added to by Thothmes III, 1600 B. C, and 

 again by Barneses III, 1200 B. 0. 



In the work connected with this valuable archaeological undertaking, 

 a Frenchman, M. M. G. Legrain, under whose direction the restoration 

 was carried on, employed at one time over 700 Fellahs. The methods 

 adopted to replace the huge carved blocks of stone are thus described 

 in L'lllustration, January, 1899: 



By means of filling in and an inclined plane M. Legrain succeeded in lowering, 

 piece by piece, its architraves of a weight of 57,200 pounds, and its capital and its 

 tambours of 22,000 and 9,900 pounds. 



It is a curious fact that the Fellahs merely began again exactly what their fathers 

 had done in order to crown with success the work to be accomplished. In looking 

 at these inclined planes and at the laborers bent under baskets of earth, we find 

 ourselves carried back several thousand years, since we have seen the same picture 

 sculptured upon the walls of the edifices in commemoration of their construction. 

 There is hut one thing wanting in the modern picture, and we have not to regret it, 

 and that is the man with the lash, the taskmaster of the force of laborers of what 

 was, of old, the land of the Pharaohs. 



