The modern building contractor finds the estimate that went with the report both practical and quaint. He will find that the digging of the pit for the foundation of the monument was figured in “squares,” at $2.00 each; and since a square meant eight cubic yards, hand excavation was therefore priced at $0.25 per cubic yard. This price must have included the expense of shoring; also the pumping that such a deep pit would require. Baldwin proposed to dig a deep well on the site (today called a test pit), which would not only indicate the adequacy of the soil, but would also furnish water for construction purposes. Much water would be needed to mix the lime and sand mortar for the monument as well as for the Roman cement, for which the estimated 100 casks were figured at $7.00 each.[5] [5] “The use of natural cement was introduced by Mr. Parker, who first discovered the properties of the cement-stone in the Isle of Sheppy, and took out a patent for the sale of it in 1796, under the name of ‘Roman Cement.’”--Edward Dobson, _Rudiments of the Art of Building_ (London: John Weale, 1854). Masonry was then estimated in “perches,” and by a little arithmetic, the modern contractor will learn that a perch was then equal to 25 cubic feet, or nearly a cubic yard. The 784 perches of masonry for the foundation were priced at $10 per perch, including “stones, hammering, mortar, laying, etc.” The report of Baldwin contains no computations on the structural stability of the monument. If the modern structural designer wishes to investigate how near the safe limit the monument has been tested by Boston’s occasional hurricane winds, he has available the major dimensions given in the Baldwin Report, and the drawings of Willard’s classic _Plans and Sections of the Obelisk_ from which to make this simple computation. Such computation shows that the monument is so heavy that a hurricane wind has an almost imperceptible effect on its stability. When it is subjected to a 100-mile-per-hour wind, the resultant force is displaced only a fraction of a foot from the center of the 50-foot-wide foundation. The maximum load on the soil is about five tons per square foot--a safe bearing load on “the bed of clay and gravel which composes the soil of the Hill” as described in an old account. The same account speaks of “great pains having been used in loosening the earth, and in puddling and ramming the stones.” Surely, our construction ancestors would not have purposely disturbed the underlying soil, in an attempt to improve upon the natural bearing strength of one of the firmest of foundations: glacial hardpan. Like any good builder, they were undoubtedly merely puddling with water the earth backfill around the completed foundation.