fearing lest the engineer should not take sufficient care to proportion the power of the machinery to the weight he had to raise, he ordered his own son to be bound to the apex, more effectually to guarantee the safety of the monument."* The same writer describes a method of transporting obelisks from the quarries down the river, by lashing two flat-bottomed boats together, side by side, which were admitted into a trench, cut from the Nile to the place where the stone lay, laden with a quantity of ballast exactly equal to the weight of the obelisk; which, so soon as they had been introduced beneath the transverse block, was all taken out; and the boats rising, as they were lightened, bore away the obelisk in lieu of their previous burden. But we are uncertain if this method was adopted by the Egyptians; and though he mentions it as the invention of one Phoenix, he fails to inform us at what period he lived. No insight, as I have already observed, is given into the secrets of their mechanical knowledge, from the sculptures, or paintings of the tombs, though so many subjects are there introduced. Our information, connected with this point, is confined to the use of levers, and a sort of crane; which last is mentioned by Herodotus, in describing the mode of raising the stones from one tier to another, when they built the pyramids. He says it was made of short pieces of wood t;— an indefinite expression, conveying no notion *Plin. xxxvi. 9. + Herod. ii. 125. either of its form or principle; -and every stone was raised to the succeeding tier by a different machine. Diodorus tells us*, that machines were not invented at that early period, and that the stone was raised by mounds or inclined planes; but we may be excused for doubting his assertion, and thus be relieved from the effort of imagining an inclined plane five hundred feet in perpendicular height, with a proportionate base. It is true, that the occupations of the mason and the statuary are sometimes alluded to in the paintings; the former, however, are almost confined to No. 392. Part 1. Large sitting colossus of granite, which they are polishing. glyphics at the back. Thebes. the levelling or squaring a stone, and the use of the chisel. Some are represented polishing and painting statues of men, sphinxes, and small figures; and two instances occur of large granite colossi, surrounded with scaffolding*, on which men are engaged in chiseling and polishing the stone; the painter following the sculptor to colour the hieroglyphics he has engraved at the back of the statue. The usual mode of cutting large blocks from the quarries was by a number of metal wedges, which were struck at the same instant along its whole length; sometimes, however, they seem to have been of highly dried wood, which being driven into holes previously cut for them by a chisel, and then saturated with water, split the stone by their expansion; and the troughs frequently found along the whole line of the holes, where the wedges were inserted, argue strongly in favour of this opinion. Such a method could only be adopted when the wedges were in an horizontal position, upon the upper surface of the stone; but those put into the sides were impelled by the hammer only. To separate the lower part of a ponderous mass from the rock, we may suppose they cut under it, leaving long pieces here and there to support it, like beams, which traversed its whole depth from the front to the back; and then having introduced wooden rafters into the open spaces which were cleared away, they removed the remainder of the stone, and the block rested on the wood. * Vide wood-cut, No. 392. Some have imagined that they used the same means now practised in India, of lighting a fire along the whole length of the mass, in the direction where they intended it should split; and then pouring water upon it, cracked the stone in that part by its sudden action: but this is very doubtful, and the presence of the holes for the wedges sufficiently proves the method they usually employed. INVENTIONS. Among the remarkable inventions of a remote era among the Egyptians, may be mentioned bellows and siphons. The former were used at least as early as the reign of Thothmes III. the contemporary of Moses, being represented in a tomb bearing the name of that Pharaoh. They consisted of a leather bag, secured and fitted into a frame, from which a long pipe extended, for carrying the wind to the fire. They were worked by the feet, the operator standing upon them, with one under each foot, and pressing them alternately, while he pulled up each exhausted skin with a string he held in his hand. In one instance we observe from the painting, that when the man left the bellows, they were raised, as if full of air*; and this would imply a knowledge of the valve. It is uncertain when bellows were first invented; the earliest contrivance of this kind was probably a mere reed or pipe; which we find used by * Vide wood-cut, No. 393. k, o. |