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STXJDY OF THE PYEAMIDS. 303
When newspaper scribblers, when blatant talkers, pronounce
Egypt of " little account," pronounce the pjTamids
"useless piles of stones, the largest covering four or five
acres of sand," they will permit me to pleasantly express a
pity for their egotism, and a scathing contempt for their
ignorance.
Evidences difficult to gainsay incline many to the belief
that the oldest pyramids are nearer twenty than five thousand
years old. That eminent Egyptologist, Bunsen, concedes
to Egypt an antiquity of twenty thousand, and to
China a larger period.
HOW DID THE OLD EGYPTIANS MOVE SUCH MOUNTAINOUS
MASSES OF STONE?
In Sakkarah Catacombs, near the site of the present Memphian
ruins, are beautifully polished granite slabs, constituting
the tombs of the kings, twelve feet in length, eight feet
wide, and six feet high. Such sarcophagi are actually mammoths.
In them I could and did stand erect. And 3'et
these are but playthings compared to some of the obelisks,
granite needles, and pyramidal stones, characterizing the
Egypt of remotest antiquity. This one thing is certain:
either the mechanism of ancient Egypt was vastly superior
to ours, or these huge stones and pillars were manufactured
where they now stand.
" Pliny describes some of the arrangements connected with
an. obelisk a hundred and twenty feet high, erected at Alexandria
by Ptolemseus Philadelphus. A canal was dug from
the Nile to the place where the obelisk lay. Two boats were
placed side by side, filled with pieces of stone having the
aggregate weight of the obelisk. These pieces were in masses
of one cubic foot each, so that the ratio between the quantity
of matter in the obelisk, and that held by the boats, could
be determined by a little calculation. The boats were laden
to twice the weight of the obelisk, in order that they might
pass under it, the two ends of the mighty monolith resting