Pyramids - The great pyramid of Gizeh 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 is 488 feet; it covers four acres, one rood and twenty-two perches of ground, and has been estimated by an eminent English architect to have cost not less than £30,000,000, which in United States currency would be about $145,200,000. Internal evidences prove that the great pyramid was begun about the year 2170 B.C., about the time of the birth of Abraham. It is estimated that about 5,000,000 tons of hewn stones were used in its construction.

Sphinx

The word sphinx is from the Greek and means the strangler, and was applied to a fabled creature of the Egyptians, which had the body of a lion, the head of a man or an animal, and two wings attached to its sides. In the Egyptian hieroglyphs the sphinx symbolized wisdom and power united. It has been supposed that the fact that the overflow of the Nile occurred when the sun was in the constellations Leo and Virgo gave the idea of the combinations of form in the sphinx, but this idea seems quite unfounded. In Egypt the reigning monarch was usually represented in the form of a sphinx. The most remarkable sphinx is that near the pyramids at Gizeh. It is sculptured from the rock, masonry having been added in several places to complete the form. It is 1721/2 feet long by 53 feet high, but only the head of this remarkable sculpture can now be seen, the rest of the form having been • concealed by the heaped-up sands of the desert.

Obelisks

The oldest of all the obelisks is the beautiful one of rosy granite which stands alone among the green fields upon the banks of the Nile, not far from Cairo. It is the gravestone of a great ancient city which has vanished and left only this relic behind. The city was the Bethshemesh of the Scriptures, the famous On, which is memorable to all Bible readers as the residence of the priest of Potipherah, whose daughter, Assenath, Joseph married. The Greeks called it Heliopolis.

Cleopatra's Needle

The two obelisks known as Cleopatra's Needles were set up at the entrance of the Temple of the Sun, in Heliopolis, Egypt; by Thothmes III., about 1831 B.C. We have no means of knowing when they were built, or by whom, except from the inscriptions on them, which indicate the above time. The material of which they were cut is granite, brought from Syene, near the first cataract of the Nile. Two centuries after their erection Rameses II. had the stones nearly covered with carving setting out of his own greatness and achievements. Twenty-three years before Christ, Augustus Caesar moved the obelisks from Heliopolis to Alexandria and set them up in the Caesarium, a palace, which now stands, a mere mass of ruins, near the station of the railroad to Cairo. In 1819 one of these obelisks was presented by the Egyptian Government to England, but as no one knew how to move them, it was not taken to London until 1878. Subsequently the other obelisk was presented to the United States.

The work of moving this great Egyptian obelisk from Alexandria to New York was managed by Commander H. H. Gorringe, of the United States Navy. The officer reached Alexandria October 16, 1879, and at once began to work with one hundred Arabs, who completed the excavation of the obelisk's pedestal by removing 1,730 cubic yards of earth in about twenty days. The machinery for lowering the monolith was then attached, and the block was laid in a horizontal position. Within the foundation and steps of the pedestal were found stones and implements engraved with emblematic designs, and some delay was caused in order that these might be taken up very carefully to be placed in exactly the same position in the pedestal when re-erected in New York. The obelisk was removed to the wharf and upon the steamer waiting for it, by means of cannon-balls rolling in metal grooves. The shaft, pedestal, and steps of the obelisk were removed separately, the entire mass weighing 1,470 tons.