OBELISK, a lofty quadrangular mon olithic column, "diminishing upwards, with the sides gently inclined, but not so as to terminate in an apex at the top ; neither is it truncated or cut off at the summit, but the sides are sloped off so as to form in flattish pyramidal figure, by which the whole is suitably finished off and brought to a point, without the upper part being so contracted as to appear in significant." Egypt was, properly speak ing, the land of obelisks ; and they are unquestionably to be reckoned among the most ancient monuments of that extraor dinary people. AI tail? learning, and in genuity has been expended in endeavor ing to ascertain their origin, and the purposes for which they were erected; but it does not appear that any satisfac tory solution of the problem has hitherto been given. It has been frequently as serted that obelisks were originally erect ed in honor of the sun, of which they were said to be symbolical, and that they served the purposes of a gnome or sun dial ; but this opinion is now almost totally rejected, and it is generally 'w hored that obelisks were nothing more then monumental structures, serving as ornaments to the open squares in which they were generally built, or intended to celebrate moue important event ?nd to perpetuate its remembrunce. They were
usually Haunted with hieroglyphics; and we learn from the testimony of Diodorno and Strabo that the inscriptions with which they were charged declared the amount of gold and silver, the number of troops, and the quantity of ivory, fumes, and corn which all the countries subject to Egypt were required to furnish. The two largest obelisks were erected by Sesostris in Heliopolis. They were form ed of a single block of granite, and meas ured 180 feet in height.