aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

804 ABOUND THE WORLD.
on the two banks of the canal. Then, as the pieces of stone
were taken out one by one, the boats rose, until at last they
supported the obelisk. They were finally towed down the
canal, bearing their burden with them. So far, Pliny's
account is clear; but he tells us little or nothing of the
tremendous task, performed ages before, of originally transporting
such masses from the Syene quarries to Thebes and
Heliopolis.
" An account is given by Herodotus of the transport of a
large block of granite to form a monolith temple. The
block measured thirty-two feet long, twenty-one feet wide,
and twelve feet high ; its weight is estimated to have been
not less than three hundred tons. The transport of this
huge mass down the Nile, from Syene to the Delta, occupied
two thousand men for three years."
Several comparatively inferior Egyptian obelisks have
been brought and reconstructed in Rome. The Luxor
obelisk, borne from Egypt by the skillful M. Lebas, at an immense
outlay of money and men, and put up in the Place de
la Concorde, Paris, 1833, weighed less than two hundred and
fifty tons.
This is but a babe, compared to those remaining.
There are single blocks, in that land of marvels, estimated
by Glidden and others to weigh nine, and even twelve
hundred tons. Tell us, engineers, tell us, O moderns, how
they were removed, and placed in their present positions