THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS In some of the tombs I saw the massive stone boxes in which lay the mummies of the dead kings. I measured one ten feet long, six feet wide, and eight feet high. It was hollowed out of a block of granite, and would weigh many tons. That mighty burial casket was cut out of the quarries of Aswan far above here, on the banks of the Nile. It must have been brought down the river on a barge and carried to this place. When it was finally on the ground it had to be lowered into the vault. All these feats were done without modern machinery. As I went through the tombs I saw several such caskets, and the archaeologist who guided me showed me the holes in the stone walls of the entrance ways where beams had been put across in order that ropes might be used to prevent these stone masses from sliding too far when let down. It is a difficult job for us to handle safes. One of these stone boxes would weigh as much as several safes, yet the old Egyptians moved them about as they pleased.

Indeed, I venture to say that the civil engineers of the Pharaohs could teach us much. All through this region there are enormous monuments which it would puzzle the engineers of to-day to handle. For instance, there are the Colossi of Memnon, the two mammoth stone statues that sit upon pedestals in the Nile valley within a few miles of where I am writing. Each is as high as a six-story building, and the stone pedestals rise thirteen feet above the ground. As I rode by them on my way home from the Valley of the Kings I climbed up and ran a tape meas¬ ure over their legs. Each leg is nineteen feet from sole to knee. The feet are each over three yards in length, so long that one would fill the box of a farm wagon from end to end, and so wide that it could hardly be fitted within it.

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