An obelisk is a quadrangular, taper, high spire or pyramid, raised perpendicularly, and terminating in a point, to serve as an ornament to some open square; and is very often covered with inscriptions or hieroglyphics, that is, with mystical characters or symbols used by the Egyptians to conceal and disguise their sacred things, and the mysteries of their theology. Sesostris erected in the city of Heliopolis two obelisks of extreme hard stone, brought from the quarries of Syene, at the extremity of Egypt.(267) They were each one hundred-and-twenty cubits high, that is, thirty fathoms, or one hundred and eighty feet.(268) The emperor Augustus, having made Egypt a province of the empire, caused these two obelisks to be transported to Rome, one whereof was afterwards broken to pieces. He dared not venture to make the same attempt upon a third, which was of a monstrous size.(269) It was made in the reign of Rameses: it is said that twenty thousand men were employed in the cutting of it. Constantius, more daring than Augustus, caused it to be removed to Rome. Two of these obelisks are still to be seen there, as well as another a hundred cubits, or twenty-five fathoms high, and eight cubits, or two fathoms, in diameter. Caius Cæsar had it brought from Egypt in a ship of so odd a form, that, according to Pliny, the like had never been seen.(270) Every part of Egypt abounded with this kind of obelisks; they were for the most part cut in the quarries of Upper Egypt, where some are now to be seen half finished. But the most wonderful circumstance is, that the ancient Egyptians should have had the art and contrivance to dig even in the very quarry a canal, through which the water of the Nile ran in the time of its inundation; from whence they afterwards raised up the columns, obelisks, and statues on rafts,(271) proportioned to their weight, in order to convey them into Lower Egypt. And as the country was intersected every where with canals, there were few places to which those huge bodies might not be carried with ease; although their weight would have broken every other kind of engine. SECT. II. THE PYRAMIDS.—A PYRAMID is a solid or hollow body, having a large, and generally a square base, and terminating in a point.(272)