(6) At intervals in the trench around the obelisk there are traces of squarish holes, generally going down to about the level at which the bottom of the obelisk was to be. These are seen more clearly in the south trench than in the north, and can in some cases be traced up the side of the obelisk itself. Besides these there are the deep holes seen at C and D on plate I. I believe that the holes C and D were made at the very commencement of the work to study the quality of the granite. The holes along the trench seem to have been made with the same purpose, and as a means of setting out the perimeter of the obelisk. There are indications that they were made when the removal of the top layers of rock were still in progress. (7) From the beginning of the work on this obelisk, cracks and fissures seem to have given a great deal of trouble and anxiety. Though parting fairly evenly under the action of wedges, the natural fissures of granite are most erratic; a small crack at one level or position may, in a couple of metres, become a fissure into which one can insert the blade of a knife, and conversely, a fissure traceable for 5 metres will suddenly disappear. Hence every fissure or crack, as it appeared, had to be rigorously examined, to see its probable effect on the obelisk when completed. The examination seems to have been made in three ways, which I believe to have been of two dates. The original workers method was to hammer out a depression by means of a spherical ball of about 12 lbs. weight, of a very tough greenish-black stone (section 13), until the fissure either disappeared or became larger. These examination hammerings can be seen in plate I at _j_, _k_, _n_, and _p_, _n_ being also seen in the photos on plate II no. 2 and plate III no. 1. In the depression, sometimes at one place and sometimes at two, a small fillet was left at the level of the face of the obelisk, and apparently polished; the object seems to have been to compare the state at the surface with that at the bottom of the depression. The second method was to chisel out a narrow channel right along the crack and to polish it. In some cases, as at the end of fissure _i_ on plate I, the three red lines, drawn to guide the stone-cutter, can be clearly seen at the end of the channel. It seems likely that the channel method was that used by the later workers who examined the obelisk as to the possibility of extracting a smaller one from it, as the channels are only found in the parts within the area of the smaller obelisk (section 10). I think that the channels were cut over discolourations and superficial flaws, recognised as such and left by the original workmen. The statement made by Barber, in his _The Mechanical Triumphs of the Ancient Egyptians_, that the grooves are made at some later date with the intention of cutting up the obelisk, is impossible, as two (_h_ and _i_, plate I) run transversely across the obelisk, where