the ground at this spot, the labourers had uncovered nearly the entire length of the recumbent granite, and as they were just about to fill-in the earth around, I suppose we were the last tourists who have looked in upon the open grave of this renowned relic, * * * * though I am bound to add it is the most dilapidated, weather-worn, and ill-conditioned of all its brethren on the banks of the Nile.” _Nous verrons._ [8] The battle of Alexandria was fought within sight of Cleopatra’s Needle, in March, 1801. The term “Needle” is familiar to our ear as designating a pointed shaft soaring upwards into the sky. In this sense we adopt it as the name of certain pointed rocks rising perpendicularly out of the sea, such as the “Needles” of the Isle of Wight; and it has been similarly applied to two of the obelisks of Heliopolis, Pharaoh’s Needles, which were removed by Constantine. It is a term peculiarly suitable to the obelisk, which, according to Johnson, is “a magnificent high piece of solid marble or other fine stone, having usually four faces, and lessening upwards by degrees till it ends in a point like a pyramid.” The term obelisk is of Greek origin, derived from the word “_obelos_,” a spit; conveying the idea of a pointed implement; but its Arab synonym is still more explicit—namely, “_meselleh_,” which literally means “a packing needle or skewer;” the ancient Egyptian name of obelisk being _tekn_. The Egyptian obelisks have two other important features:—first, they are monoliths, and secondly, they are hewn out of the quarries of rose-coloured granite of Syené. By monolith is meant “a single stone,” from the Greek words “monos,” one or single, and “lithos,” a stone, and is intended to signify that the object is formed of a single piece; therefore we have good reason for our wonder when we see before us a stately shaft of granite consisting of a single piece, very little short of a hundred feet in height, and weighing nearly two hundred tons.[9] [9] The real weight of the British obelisk is 186 tons, seven hundredweight, two stones, eleven pounds; and its cubic measurement 2,529 feet.