Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

28 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. was lifted by hydraulic jacks and slid forward by screw traversers until it rested horizontally upon timber blocking with its centre of gravity over the centre of the prepared pedestal some 50 feet up in the air. Under each end was ar- ranged a hydraulic jack, which raised the ends alternately and allowed more blocks to be in- troduced. When the obelisk had been raised some 50 feet into the air a pair of metal trun- nions were strapped to it at the centre of gravity. These trunnions rested in bearings at the top of a couple of tall frames. The workmen then removed the blocking piece by piece, and the stone was finally turned into a vertical position by the aid of ropes attached to its ends, amid the cheers of a large crowd of people, and lowered on to the base pre- pared for it, at three o’clock in the afternoon of September 12, 1878. As the reader is probably unaware of the fact that, for the sake of a distant posterity— which, may be as interested in things relating to the present day as we are in those of ancient Egypt—a large number of articles were placed inside the pedestal in two jars, we give a list of the items of the very miscellaneous selection made for the purpose :—A standard foot and pound ; a bronze model of the obe- lisk, one-half inch, to the foot; a memorial printed on vellum, giving a brief account of the removal of the obelisk, with plans of vari- ous arrangements ; jars of Doulton ware ; a piece of the obelisk stone chipped off during the levelling of the base ; a complete set of British coinage, including an Empress of India rupee ; a parchment copy of Dr. Birch’s trans- lation of the obelisk hieroglyphics ; a standard gauge to one-thousandth part of an inch ; a portrait of Queen Victoria ; Bibles in several languages ; the Hebrew Pentateuch; the Arabic Genesis and a translation into 215 languages of the sixteenth verse of the third chapter of St. John’s Gospel ; a Bradshaw’s railway guide ; a Mappin’s shilling razor ; one case of cigars, pipes, etc. ; a box of hair-pins ; sundry articles of female adornment; a feeding-bottle and children’s toys ; a model of one of the Tangye hydraulic jacks used in raising the obelisk ; wire ropes and specimens of marine cables ; a map of London ; copies of daily and illus- trated papers, photographs of a dozen pretty English women ; a two-foot rule ; a London Directory ; and a copy of Whitaker’s Alma- nack. The bronze Sphinxes which, lie on either side of the Needle, and form so suitable an accompaniment to the obelisk, were modelled by Mr. C. H. Mabey, the well-known sculptor, who also designed the support for the Needle. It is interesting to notice that they are sup- posed to be the largest bronze castings ever made. The transport of Cleopatra’s Needle across the open sea, though a great engineering feat, is by no means unique. The Romans many centuries ago built huge vessels to carry obe- lisks from the Nile to their capital city. In 1832 the French naval constructor Le Bas moved an obelisk from Egypt to Paris in a sailing barge built specially for the purpose at Toulon. Nor must we forget that our Needle’s fellow was taken to New York in 1880 on an ordinary steamer, on which it was embarked through a hole cut in the bows. The New York stone had to be dragged sev- eral miles overland on iron balls and rollers to the site of erection, where it was up-ended in a manner similar to that described above. The French reared their obelisk by the small end, one edge of the base acting as pivot. A large frame derrick was employed to transmit the oblique pull necessary to raise the mass. Most of the photographs illustrating this article were kindly provided by Mr. George Dixon, the son of one of the engineers who moved and erected the Needle.