GIANTS IN THOSE DAYS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7675, 7 April 1903, Page 3

GIANTS IN THOSE DAYS.

In Egypt ar© to be found the* largest. monuments in the world, und probably willi be for aii timo. It. is not likely (says "Engineering") that we shall again see a building with seven million tons of stone in it, as has-, the pyramid of Gizeh, and it will bo. long before we have an irrigation reservoir of greater capacity than Lake Moeris, which held 11,800 million tons of water between high and low-wat^r marks. y What the Labyrinth was like we do notreally know, but Herodotus classed it as a greater wonder than the Pyramids, although lesser than Lake Moeris. Further, there is a tradition that in tihe dim past the Nile flowed at the foot of the. Libyan hills, and that it was diverted from, that course into its present bed, and, if the account be true, the work was of enormous magnitude. The engineers of the pa.*b directed the forces of Nature on a largo scale. The matter 'in which they excelled was t-he transportaticm. and manipulation of heavy weights — a fea.t that appeals strongly to the lay imagination. Among the chief examples of saich work are the columns of tho temple of Karnak. To cut a block of stone in a distant!' quarry, to tVark it to a Cylinder 12ft in diameter, float.it down the Nile, land it, and place it on the top of a column of similar stones, making a total height of 60ft, was no small enterprise. A" still more difficult undertaking was the great obelisk now standing beside the* Church of St John Lateran, in Rome, witihi a height of 103 ft and a weight of 450 tons. But the crowning example of Egyptian, engineering was the colossal statue of Ranwsos ll., 'at Thebes. Before it was/ broken it was a single block of red granite 60ft in height, and it has been computed to weigh 887 tons.