In 1877 Ismail Pasha, father of the present Khedive of Egypt, signified his wish to present an obelisk to the United States. After the selection had been made, the entire control of the operations attending its removal was intrusted to the late Lieut.-Commander Henry H. Gorringe, U.S.N., who conducted the whole affair in a most satisfactory manner, from the takingdown of the obelisk at Alexandria, to the re-erecting of it on its present site.

The time occupied in its removal was exactly one year and four months: the removal of the obelisk of Luxor to Paris occupied six years' time.

The whole cost of transportation, about $105,000, was defrayed by Mr. William H. Vanderbilt of New York. The machinery for moving this great monolith was all made in this country: it consisted simply of a pair of iron trunnions and a pair of steel derricks.

The stone was carried overland seven miles to the government dock at Alexandria, and was then put in the hold of the steamship "Dessoug" (a vessel of sixteen hundred tons), which reached New York, July 20,

1880.

The work of moving it across the city was skilfully managed; and exactly at noon on the 22d of January, 1881, this stranger from the banks of the Nile was placed on the site prepared for it in the New World, in the presence of about five thousand people.

The height of the obelisk, including the base on which it stands, is 80 feet, II inches. The weight, with pedestal and foundation, is 712,000 pounds. The total elevation from mean high water to the top of the obelisk is 194 feet, 6 inches.

This monument of antiquity is an inestimable treasure to our country. We can hardly appreciate that

we have, standing in New York, a column upon which Moses and Aaron looked, and whose hieroglyphics they could doubtless read; that Darius, Cambyses, Alexander the Great, the Ptolemies, Julius Cæsar, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, and Augustus were familiar with it.

Grave fears are entertained that it will not stand our Northern climate. Some evidences of its beginning to crumble are already noticeable.

This obelisk is red granite of Syene, and bears the name of "Cleopatra's Needle."

The other of the two obelisks erected by Thutmes III., was removed to London, and placed on the Thames embankment, in 1878.

197. THE BONE SAID TO BE THE NUCLEUS OF THE RESURRECTION BODY.

"God formed them from the dust, and He once more
Will give them strength and beauty as before."

"The Emperor Adrian - the sceptic whose epigrammatic address to his soul in prospect of death (translated by Byron) is well known - asked Rabbi Joshua Ben Hananiah, in the course of an interview following the successful siege of Bitter, 'How doth a man revive again in the world to come?' He answered, and said, From the bone Luz, in the backbone.' Saith he to him, 'Demonstrate this to me.' Then he took Luz, a little bone out of the backbone, and put it in water, and it was not steeped; he put it into the fire, and it was not burned; he brought it to the mill, and that could not grind it; he laid it on the anvil, and knocked it with a hammer, but the anvil was cleft, and the hammer broken.

"Butler, in his 'Hudibras,' erroneously traces to the Rabbinic belief, the modern name, os sacrum; its origin really being due to the custom of placing it upon the altar in ancient sacrifices."

"The learned Rabbins of the Jews

Write, there's a bone, which they call Luz.
No force in nature can do hurt thereto;
And therefore, at the last great day,
All th' other members shall, they say,
Spring out of this, as from a seed."

198. DYING WORDS OF POPE GREGORY VII.
(HILDEBRAND).

"I have loved justice, and hated iniquity; therefore I die an exile."

These were the last words of Pope Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), one of the most illustrious men of the Middle Ages, born about A.D. 1020.

He was called to Rome in 1049 by Pope Leo IX., to assist in the papal councils as chancellor and cardinal; and he held this office for twenty years, under five successive popes, over whom he exercised the influence of a great mind.

In 1073 Hildebrand rose to the papal throne, under the title of Gregory VII. he was the first Pope elected by the College of Cardinals.

Until his time, the title of Pope was given to all bishops alike: he, however, in 1076, decreed that thenceforth it should be applied only to the Roman "papa," or pontiff, prefixing, at the same time, sanctus, whence the modern title, "His Holiness the Pope."

Pope Gregory's first act was to strike a blow at what was called the "right of investiture," claimed by the