The largest and costliest private mansion in the world is that belonging to Lord Bute, called Mountstuart, and situated near Rothesay. It covers nearly two acres; is built in gothic style; the walls, turrets and balconies are built of stone. The immense tower in the center of the building is one hundred and twenty feet high, with a balcony around the top. The halls are constructed entirely of marble and alabaster, and the rooms are finished in mahogany, rosewood and walnut. The fireplaces are all carved marbles of antique design. The exact cost of this fairy palace is not known, but it has never been estimated at less than $8,000,000.

In the rigging of a ship a block is an important part of the apparatas necessary for raising sails and yards, tightening ropes, etc. The block comprises both the frame or shell, and the pulley or pulleys - usually termed "sheaves"- contained within it. In nautical and mechanical language a tackle includes the rope as well as the block through which it works. Ships' blocks vary greatly in size, shape, power, designation, and use, but nearly every block comprises a shell or wooden exterior, a sheave or wheel on which the rope runs, a pin or axle on which the sheave turns, and a strap (of rope or iron) to fasten the block to any particular station.

A Sedan chair is a portable covered vehicle for carrying a single person, borne on two poles by two men. The name is derived from the town of Sedan, where this species of conveyance is said to have been invented. The Duke of Buckingham used one in the reign of James I. The proceeding gave general offence, and it was made a matter of public remark that this royal favorite used his fellow countrymen to do the work of beasts. In September 1634 Sir Sanders Duncombe got a letter patent, granting him the sole right and privilege for fourteen years to use and let for hire within London and Westminster "covered chairs" to prevent the unnecessary use of coaches; according to Evelyn he got the notion from Naples.

The Sarcophagus is any stone receptable for a dead body. The name originated in the property assigned to a species of stone, found at Assos in Troas and used in early times, of consuming the whole body, with the exception of the teeth, within the space of forty days. The oldest known sarcophagi are those of Egypt, some of which are contemporary with the pyramids. The earliest of these are of a square or oblong form, and either plain or ornamented with lotus leaves; the later are of the form of swathed mummies, and bear inscriptions. The pyramids were sepulchral tombs built to contain the sarcophagi of the kings of Egypt; the Phoenician and Persian kings were also buried in sarcophagi. The Roman sarcophagi of the earlier republican period were plain. Sarcophagi were occasionally used in the later republic, although burning had become the more general mode of disposing of the dead.

The great pyramid of Cheops is the largest structure of any kind ever erected by the hand of man. Its original dimensions at the base were 764 feet square, and its perpendicular height in the highest point 488 feet; it covers four acres, one rood, and twenty-two perches of ground and has been estimated by an eminent architect to have cost not less than $145,-200,000. Internal evidence proves that the great pyramid was begun about the year 2170 B.C., or the time of the birth of Abraham. It is estimated that about 5,000,000 tons of hewn stone were used in its construction, and the evidence points to the fact that these stones were brought a distance of nearly seven hundred miles from quarries in Arabia.

The largest locomotive ever constructed prior to 1880 was that made at the Baldwin Locomotive Works during the early part of 1879. It was turned out ready for use April 10th of that year and named Uncle Dick. Uncle Dick weighed 130,000 pounds; was sixty feet from headlight to the rear end of the tender. He is now at work on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe" road. During the year 1883 the same works that constructed Uncle Dick turned out several locomotives for the Northern Pacific railroad, each weighing 180,000 pounds. During the same year, as if to over-shadow the Baldwin works, the Central Pacific Company caused to be built at their shops in Sacramento, Cal., what are really the largest locomotives in the world. They have eight drive-wheels each, the cylinders are nineteen inches in diameter, and the stroke three feet. These engines weigh, with the tender, as Uncle Dick's weight was given, almost 190,000 pounds. The Baldwin Works, in 1889, completed for the Northern Pacific an engine weighing, with tender, 225,000 pounds.

The soldering of glass and procelain with metals is a novel French process, and its adaptations are likely to be as numerous as they are valuable. It is also simple. The portion of the tube that is to be soldered is first covered with a thin layer of platinum, this deposit being obtained by covering the slightly heated glass, by means of a brush, with very neutral chloride of platinum, mixed with essential oil of chamomile, the latter being slowly evaporated, and, when the white and odoriferous vapors cease to be given off, the temperature is raised to a red heat; the platinum is then reduced and covers the glass tube with a layer of bright metal. On connecting the tube thus metalized and placed in a bath of sulphate of copper, to the negative pole of a battery of suitable energy, there is deposited on the platinum a ring of copper, which will be malleable and very adhesive if the operation has been properly performed. In this state the glass tube, covered with copper, can be treated like a genuine metalic tube, and be soldered to iron, copper, bronze, platinum, or any metal that can be united with tin solder.

The great Egyptian obelisk in Central Park, New York, is one of the most noted monoliths in the world. It was quarried, carved and erected about the time of Abraham, to commemorate the deeds of an ancient Pharaoh. Five hundred years later the conquering Sesostris, the bad Pharaoh of Scripture, carved on its surface the record of his famous reign. The royal cartouch (or oval) shows that the work was done under the immediate order and sanction of the king. But Sesostris (or Rameses II) reigned one hundred years before the Trojan war; so all the symbols now seen on Cleopatra's Needle were already venerable with age in the days of Priam, Hector, Helen, Agamemnon, Achilles and Ulysses. The Roman poet Horace says there were brave men before Agamemnon, but they lacked a Homer to save their names from oblivion. Sesostris, however, was an exception. He escaped oblivion without the aid of a Homer. Homer's heroes are to be congratulated above all men on having their story sung by such a minstrel; but with this thought there always goes a little doubt as to whether there ever were such heroes and such deeds outside of Homer's imagination.

The hard granite of the Egyptian monuments leaves no doubt that Sesostris lived and reigned.