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EXTRACTS PROM 



form of the granite itfelf. After a long and accurate 

 fhidy of the very various forms in which the granite is 

 found, I have remarked this general agreement in 

 them : that the parallelopipedofts they always form, are 

 frequently divided again by a diagonal, from whence 

 immediately two rude obelifks arife. Probably this 

 phenomenon of nature may appear coloffal in upper 

 iEgypt and the fyenite mountains : and as it was cuf- 

 tomary to denote a remarkable fpot, by the fetting-up 

 of fome confpicuous ftone ; fo, for the purpofe of 

 making public monuments, they here chofe out and 

 brought away the larger!, (and which perhaps even in 

 thofe mountains were but rare,) granites of the wedge 

 form they could find. There was frill always work 

 enough to be done for giving them a regular fhape, 

 for inferring the hieroglyphics with proper care, and 

 for polifhing the whole ; but yet not fo much, as if 

 the entire figure, without any guidance from nature, 

 had been to be hewn out from an enormous mafs of 

 rock. 



For the confirmation of my argument I mail not 

 pretend to fhew the manner in which the hieroglyphics 

 were let in ; namely, that flrft a deepening was cut in 

 the ftone, before the figure was inferted. This matter 

 may be explained from other caufes; I might however 

 adduce and maintain in mv behalf, that moffc of the 

 fides were found already in fuch a tolerable aptitude, 

 that it might be much better to inchace, as it were, 

 the figures, than to reprefent them with fo much relief, 

 and to have to deepen fo much the more the whole fu? 

 perficies of the ftone. 



nr. ita- 



