CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE CRUMBLING.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20499, 18 March 1932, Page 4

CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE CRUMBLING.

» —_ effect of acid-laden fog. ' Cleopatra's Needle is crumbling away. The millions of Londoners to whom it is a familiar landmark on the Thames Embankment have come to l regard it as something almost everlasting- It stood in Egypt when Abraham walked the sands. Queen Cleopatra saw it, and Moses played round it when a child. Three thousand years of the sun and sand and rain of Egypt left it undamaged, but 50 years of the London atmosphere have been too much for -it. It was elected in its present position in-September, 1878. Experts who'examined it lately discovered tliaj the edges are becoming blurred, the stone is rotting, the surface is becoming, pitted, and it is feared that in another few years its familiar outline will be altogether lost unless some means can be~ found to save it. or it, is removed to a more friendly air. The London County Council lias ordered a special inspection to be made at once to find the extent of the damage. Sulphuric acid is the agent at work. It comes from the sulphur in chimney smoke. Mixed with the damp air this forms .the acid which' settles in. the. fogs on .the stonework and gradually eats it away. Mr Alan E. Munb.v. the architect who has made a special study of the subject,'told a reporter last month that in his opinion the onlv way to save Cleopatra's Needle would be to wash it down with clean water from .hose pipes at least once a month.