(1) By undercutting the obelisk from both sides to a certain extent, say a quarter of the breadth from each side, and either detaching it by a series of very large wedge-slots (as was done all over the quarries for medium-sized blocks), _or_, if the Egyptians used wooden wedges, expanded by the action of water, by one long wedge channel on each side of the obelisk. These could be wetted by flooding the trench with water, but before this could be done, the trench would have to be divided into compartments by, say, mud-brick walls to prevent the water running down to the deep end, leaving the pyramidion end dry. In this case a large allowance would have to be made in case the granite did not break evenly across between the wedge-channels. The great objection to this method is the risk of the obelisk breaking across owing to uneven strains set up by the wedges; it will be seen, in section 43, that the obelisk can only just support its own weight when in a horizontal position. If this method were employed, before the obelisk could be moved, it had to be raised off its bed to pass ropes round it. This could be effected by levering from both sides of the obelisk—using the outer trench wall as fulcra—and gradually rocking the obelisk higher by packing below it at each tilt. Assuming that only half a metre was undercut from both sides, it would require 30 12‐inch tree-trunks going down three feet into the trench (properly packed), and projecting 18 feet above the trench, being used vertically, with 70 men pulling on ropes attached to the top of each lever. The strain set up would be about 1000 pounds per square inch, which is well within the {24} powers of ordinary coniferous wood as cypress. (I assume that a man pulls 100 pounds.) The more undercutting performed, the less force would be required to rock the obelisk. Since the obelisk would have to be tilted from both sides, a good deal of rock would have to be removed from the south side of it before the levers could be used.