III.

The Largest Stones of the World.

It is interesting to compare the obelisk on the Embankment with the other large stones of the world; stones, of course, that have been quarried and utilized by man. Of this kind, the largest in England are the blocks at Stonehenge. The biggest weighs about eighteen tons, and is raised up twenty-five feet, resting, as it does, on two upright stones. These were probably used for religious purposes, and their bulk has excited in all ages the wonder of this nation.

The London Obelisk weighs one hundred and eighty-six tons, and therefore is about ten times the weight of Stonehenge’s largest block. It is therefore by far the largest stone in England. The obelisk was moreover hoary with the age of fifteen centuries when the trilithons of Stonehenge were set up, and therefore its colossal mass and antiquity may well fill our minds with amazement and veneration.

The individual stones of the pyramids, large though they are, and wonderful as specimens of masonry, are nevertheless small compared with the giant race of the obelisks.

The writer, when inspecting the outer wall of the Temple Hill at Jerusalem, measured a magnificent polished stone, and found it to be twenty-six feet long, six feet high, and seven feet wide. It is composed of solid limestone, and weighs about ninety tons. This stone occupies a position in the wall one hundred and ten feet above the rock on which rest the foundation stones, and arouses wonder at the masonic and engineering skill of the workmen of King Solomon and Herod the Great. This block, however, is only half the weight of Cleopatra’s Needle, and even this obelisk falls far short in bulk of many of Egypt’s gigantic granite stones.

At Alexandria, Pompey’s Pillar is still to be seen. It is a beautifully finished column of red granite, standing outside the walls of the old town. Its total length is about one hundred feet, and its girth round the base twenty-eight feet. The shaft is made of one stone, and probably weighs about three hundred tons.

Even more gigantic than Pompey’s Pillar is a colossal block found on the plain of Memphis. Next to Thebes, in Upper Egypt, Memphis was the most important city of ancient Egypt. Here lived the Pharaohs while the Israelites sojourned in the land, and within sight of this sacred city were reared the mammoth pyramids. “As the hills stand round about Jerusalem, so stand the pyramids round about Memphis.”

A few grassy mounds are the only vestiges of the once mighty city; and in the midst of a forest of palm trees is an excavation dug in the ground, in which lies a huge granite block, exposed to view by the encompassing débris being cleared away. This huge block is a gigantic statue lying face downwards. It is well carved, the face wears a placid countenance, and its size is immense. The nose is longer than an umbrella, the head is about ten feet long, and the whole body is in due proportion; so that the colossal monolith (for it is one stone) probably weighs about four hundred tons.