Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

10 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. Among the wonderful ruins of the Temple of the Sun, at Baalbec in Syria, may be seen the largest squared stones ever used for a building. In one of the walls, The Great a fought of 19 feet above St°o1 level ground, are Baalbec. three monster blocks, all over 63 feet long, and 13 feet high. Their width, is unknown. In a quarry near Baalbec lies another stone, hewn, but not yet separated entirely from the rock. This mam- moth, shown in our illustration, is 69 feet long, 14 feet thick, and 17 feet high! Its weight has been estimated at 1,500 tons. We cannot doubt that the hewers meant to in- corporate it into the temple. Dr. W. M. Thomson, author of The, Land and the Book, who visited the ruins, was impressed not more by the mere size of the stones in the wall than by the perfection of their finish. “ The corresponding surfaces of these enor- mous stones are squared so truly,” he writes, “ and polished so smoothly that the fit is exact. I was at first entirely deceived, and measured two as one, making it more than 120 feet long. The joint had to be searched for, and, when found, I could not thrust the blade of my knife between the stones. What architect,” he asks, “ of our day could cut and bring together with greater success gigantic blocks of marble more than 60 feet long and 12 feet square ? ” In the quarries from which these colossal stones came can be seen to-day partly separated blocks already grooved for the insertion of wooden wedges, which, when saturated with water, would tear THE COLOSSI OF AMENHOTEP III. AT THEBES. Photo, J. P. Sébah. Each colossus 18 53 feet high, weighs several hundred tons, and is cut out of a single granite block brought trom the distant quarries of Assuan. That on the right is known as the Statue of Memnon.