SEA-GOING OBELISKS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2645, 30 June 1877, Page 4

SEA-GOING OBELISKS.

, ■'■' (PEOM THE NEW YOKE TIMES.) Every tourist who has visited Alexandria during the last generation has muddied his boots in the effort to closely examine the half-buried obelisk, popularly known as Cleopatra's Needle. Knglishxnen have taken a peculiar interest in it, inasmuch as it was once presented by Mehemet Ali to the British Government, as an appropriate expression of his gratitude to the latter. As it was never clearly ascertained what reason Mehemet Ali had for gratitude to Great Britain, it has been suspected that he was a grim humorist who desired to play a practical joke on the British Government, and therefore, in the absence of any available white elephant, tried to bankrupt England with an obelisk. At any rate, England declined to assume the task of conveying the obelisk to London. No one knew how to transport such an enormous block of stone, and that it was pointed out that even if the obelisk could be brought to England, it was more than doubtful if its hieroglyphics would meet the popular literary taste. So Cleopatra's Needle was .allowed to rest in the Alexandria mud, and Englishmen who felt a longing for obelisks were compelled to make a voyage to Egypt in order to gratify it. But of late years obelisks have become more popular in English literary circles, and there has grown up a demand for hieroglyphics which has attracted renewed attention to Cleopatra's JN'eedle. Learned professors have writteii scores of letters to The Times, showing that the great want of the present day is the diffusion of popular obelisks, and the s?ate ought to bring Cleopatra's Needle to England, as a means of educating the people and qualifying them for th^ duties which successive reform bills hare imposed upon them. This agitation has not been without its effect, and it has at last been decided to take possession of Mehemet Ali's gift and "to bring it to England. An ingenious scientific person has devised a plan for its safe transportation, and if all goes on well, London will before very long be supplied with its own hieroglyphics, and Englishmen who hanker for obelisks will no longer be com pelted to go abroad in order to patronise the obelisks of Paris and Some. The remarkable similarity in point of model between Cleopatra's needle and the modern British steam-ship has evidently suggested the plan which has been adopted for its transportation. The obelisk is to be floated by means) of timber fastened to its sides, and is then to be rigged like a. fore-and-aft schooner. A crew will then be shipped, and the obelisk, tinder the command of a professor in a Scotch University, will clear at the Alexandria Custom-house, and set sail for England. A. steam-tug is to accompany her—if that is the proper pronoun for a sea-going obelisk—in order to be of assistance in case of difficulty, but the obelisk ' is really to transport herself and to make the voyage from Egypt to London. Hoy the obelisk will act when at sea remains to be seen. That she will be stronger than an ordinary iron steamer there is no doubt, but whether she will be fast or weatherly cannot be predicted. Of course, the men will have to remain on deck during the entire -voyage, since " going below " in a solid obelisk is out of the question. Her great weight will prevent her from rising readily to the sea, and hence her forecastle will probably be wet and uncomfortable. Still this is not a matter of much consequence, and sailors who have known the horrors of a voyage on board a monitor would gladly welcome an order transferring them to an obelisk. The great advantages of the sea-going obelisk as a man-of-war are obvious. Her immense weight would fender her the most efficient ram that has ever been launched, while shot and shell would glance harmlessly from her granite sides. The ordinary iron-clad is notoriously hollow, and, hence, if struck by a shot heavy enough to perforate its sides/is liable to go to the bottom. The obelisk, on the other hand, is solid all the way through, and is hence possessed of far greater power of resisting shot. It is certainly odd that no naval constructor ever hit upon the beautifully simple idea of building a solid iron ship, which should be absolutely indestructible, and. against which the artillery of the enemy could accomplish nothing, except, of course, the killing of the crew, who would necessarily .be on deck. The sea-going obelisk, will, however^ teach them a valuable lesson. Of whatuse would a Eussian iron-clad be when opposed to a stout and fast British obelisk. The latter might be fired at all day without sustaining any injury, and at the end of that time she could suddenly run her apes through the unhappy ironclad, and sink her without firing a shot. While the moral and physical condition of the English people will, of course, be greatly improved by the actual possession of a handsomely executed obelisk, full of interesting remarks in large, clear hieroglyphics, the chief value of the transportation of the obelisk to London will be the revolution which it will effect on naval ship-building. The European navies will at once discard their iron clads, and provide themselves with first-rate line-of-battle obelisks. France will immediately launch the obelisk of the Place de la Concorde, and fit it for sea, and the Italian Government will soon convert the dozen or so obelisks now ornamenting Rome into a fleet that will dominate the Mediterranean. It is to be hoped that the Scotch pro-, fessor is really in earnest in his professed purpose of safely conveying his obelisk to. ..England ; but if he desires to enter upon a carepr of philosophical piracy, the opportunity is now before him. With his long, low, schooner-rigged obelisk, manned by a crew of desperate metaphysicians, ho could ravage the sea:--, and feel'himself safe from pursuit until some Government should aim and equip a faster obelisk, and send it in srarch of him. If triis obelisk does not arrive at London within a reasonable time, suspicion will become a certainty, and we should soon hear stories'of vessels captured by the piratical obelisk, and searched for obnoxious philosophical books, and of hundreds of unhappy persons who, after a failure to pass an examination in Scotch metaphysics, have been made to walk the.plank. The obelish ought, as a lueastire of precaution, to be pnt under the command of a naval officer. Scotch professors may have their uses intuc economy of nature, hut it is risking too much to give the command of • the only obelisl? afloat to a Scotch professor who may use her as an instrument for forcibly spreading the views of Dugald Sttwart, and of exterminating the followers of Kant and Fichte. "