The answer is obvious: the monument was built in the days of hand labor supplemented by animal power, and hand labor to the independent Boston mechanic of over a century ago did not mean hundreds of slaves tugging in unison to the drumbeat of an Egyptian timer, while an overseer cracked his whip. And the builders had determined to construct their monument of one of the hardest of building stones--New England granite--in the use of which there was then little precedent. When the Bunker Hill Monument Association offered a prize of $100 for the best design of a monument, many plans, mostly of columns, were submitted. The Board of Artists of the Association (Daniel Webster, Gilbert Stuart, Washington Allston, Loammi Baldwin, and George Ticknor), who had to pass upon the submitted designs, favored the Greenough model based on an Egyptian obelisk of ancient Thebes. Although the directors had strongly favored a column, they yielded to the judgment of the Board of Artists and adopted the obelisk design instead. Upon the adoption of the successful design, a committee, of which Loammi Baldwin was chairman, was appointed to “report a design of an obelisk.” Baldwin was a Harvard graduate, who had studied abroad under the patronage of Count Rumford.[2] He had become one of America’s most prominent engineers. Baldwin was responsible for the construction of the dry docks at the Charlestown and Norfolk Navy Yards; planned a canal tunnel (later built as a railroad tunnel) through the Hoosac Mountain; and was active in surveys for an adequate water supply for Boston, in the day when Boston people got their water from wells. Baldwin and his associates on the committee first went to the Boston and Roxbury Milldam (now Beacon Street), from which the monument would be prominently visible across the Charles River. Miniature models of different dimensions were mounted on the Milldam fence and were viewed from a definite distance to the rear. In this highly practical manner, the size of the most striking monument on distant Bunker Hill was determined. [2] The famous scientist, Benjamin Thompson, of Woburn, Mass., who later became an English citizen, and who established the fact that heat is a form of motion. The Baldwin Report on the design of the Bunker Hill Monument, described as neatly handwritten, was one of the valuable documents in the literature of early American engineering history. It ranks with the “Private Canal Journal” of DeWitt Clinton,[3] who promoted the Erie Canal; the report on American railroad standards of 100 years ago by Captain (later General) George B. McClellan of Civil War fame; Roebling’s report on the proposed Brooklyn Bridge; and similar historical documents that describe the methods from which the present processes of promotion and construction have sprung. [3] William W. Campbell, _Life and Writings of DeWitt Clinton_ (New York: Baker and Scribner, 1849).