not lead us to underrate
their mechanical powers, or their means of transporting objects of as
great bulk as ourselves by sea. The parade which was made at Paris about
transporting the obelisk from Egypt, and erecting it in the Place de
Concorde, caused our neighbours to overlook the fact, that there are
several larger obelisks still existing at Rome, which were brought from
Egypt, and there is one at Constantinople. The largest obelisk at Rome
was brought there from Alexandria in the tine of Constantius, when the
arts and sciences are generally supposed to have been in a declining
state.[1]

[1] The height of the Parisian obelisk is 76 feet 6 inches, that of the
Lateran, 105 feet 6 inches; of the Piazza del Popolo, 87 feet 6 inches;
of the Piazza San Pietro, 83 feet. Only about 50 feet of the obelisk in
the Atmeidan at Constantinople is now in existence, but its proportions
indicate that it must originally have exceeded 80 feet. We have two
obelisks in the British Museum, but we cannot boast much of our
mechanical or naval skill in transporting them, as they are only eight
feet each in length.

That the Romans found little difficulty in transporting the largest
obelisks and columns by sea, is not wonderful, when we attend to the
great size of some of the vessels which were constructed in ancient
times. Our ignorance of the manner in which forty banks of oars were
disposed in vessels larger than our three-deckers, in such a way as to
enable them to make long voyages, does not authorize us to doubt the
fact, with such proofs as exist. Our ideas of ancient navies are
generally derived from our recollections of the battle of Salamis, as
described by Herodotus, and of the engagements between the Romans and
Carthaginians, in Polybius. This, however, was the infancy of the navel
art, though the Romans had made great advances beyond the Athenians.
Polybius, in noticing the improvement, observes that they never made use
of vessels like the small triremes of the Greek states, but constructed
only quinqueremes for war; and that of these they lost seven hundred in
the first Punic war, while the Carthaginians lost five hundred.[1]

[1] The war lasted twenty-three years, from B.C. 264 to 241.--POLYBIUS,
i. 63.

It may not, however, be superfluous to mention the measurement of some
of the largest ships constructed by the ancients. A very large ship was
built for Hiero, king of Syracuse, under the direction of Archimedes. We
ough