pyramidal summits, covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions recounting the dedication of the temple by the king to his favorite divinity. These obelisks were sometimes ninety feet high, and mounted upon square blocks. They were not always of equal size, probably owing to the difficulty of obtaining single stones of such enormous length. It is of interest to note that their sides were made slightly convex in order to prevent their appearing concave, which would be the effect had they been left quite flat. A second set of towers, or propylæa, with staircases, came next, with a court or area intervening. On each side of this court a colonnade was generally placed; and sometimes before the entrance to the towers two colossal statues of the king, represented seated, with his hands resting upon his knees in the conventional attitude of repose. The most famous are those known as the Colossi of Memnon, which stand on the plain of Thebes. They were probably in the court of the temple of Amunoph III., of which scarcely any vestige now remains. They are fifty feet high, mounted upon pedestals. One of them is called the Vocal Memnon, as, in ancient times, it gave forth sounds at the break of day—a phenomenon more easily explained as a trick of the priests, than by natural causes. Beyond this court there was usually an inner vestibule, with columns forming porticos on the four sides; those opposite the entrance being connected by stone screens, reaching half-way up, forming a shaded anteroom, or pronaos, to the great hall of assembly, which was the next apartment. The shafts and capitals of the columns varied in different buildings. The plain cylinder, carrying an inverted bell decorated with palm or other smaller leaves, or a capital in the shape of the lotus flower were the commonest forms. A column, representing the stems of water-plants bound together with rings, and swelling out at the top in the place of the capital, was also often employed. Besides these, statues of kings, or shafts surmounted by the heads of Isis or Osiris, were used as supports. The architrave, or beam, did not rest directly upon the capital, but upon an intermediate block. This block, when on the heads of deities, was in the shape of a miniature pylon. The cornices were formed of a deep cove and fillet decorated with winged asps. Some idea of the size of these inner vestibules, or peristyles, may be formed from the dimensions of that in the great temple of Medeenet Haboo, which measures 123 by 133 feet, and has a height of 39 feet 4 inches. Each of the porticos of the East and West sides is supported by five columns; those on the North and South by eight Osiride pillars, having a circumference of 23 feet and a height of 24 feet.