McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1885-01-01
THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT.
The Highest Work Of Man In the World by
FOrty-three Feet.

THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT.
The Highest Work Of Man in the World by
Forty-three Feet.
To-day the aluminium cap was
placed on the top of the Washington
monument and its exterior is complet-
ed, writes correspondent of The
Cleveland Leader. Five hundred and
fifty-five feet high, it has an area at
the base large enough for two big city
houses, but its top as 1t kisses the
clouds, is no larger than the point of
pin. At five hundred feet above the
ground it has four sides each of which
is thirty-five feet wide. Its area at
this point is that of a comfortable six
room house, each room of which might
be twelve by sixteen. 1t would take
more than 125 yards of carpet to cover
its floor, and man with good eleva-
vator might make pleasant summer
residence of house built up here.
This square forms the base of the pyr-
amidal top which runs from it fifty
five feet until it terminates in its me-
talic point. This point is constructed
OF the largest piece of aluminium ever
mace. 1t is a pyramid nine inches
high, which shines like speck of light
away up there under the rays of the
sun. 1t weighs just one hundred
ounces and is one-third as light as it
would be if ir was made of copper.
Aluminium does not corrode, and it
makes one of the best conductors of
lightning. A wire will be fastened to
the lower side of this little pyramid
and run down into the earth. This
will make the longest lightning rod
ever constructed.
Standing by the monument one is
greatly impressed with the mechanical
skill required to build it. Its stones
are great blocks, in some cases nine
feet long, two feet thick, and three and
four feet wide. There sre' more than
5000 of them. They are of white mar
BILE, and weigh several tons each. The
ingenuity which can raise such stones
several hundred feet above the ground
seems the triumph of mechanical skill,
and one is inclined to pat himself on
the back in that he belongs to an age
so far advanced in the march of pro-
gress. He is inclined to sneer at the
works of the past, and to think that the
massive structure before him will out
asst the ages. A second thought bids
him pause. He remembers the saying
in regard to the Roman Coliseum.
While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand,
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall,
And when Rome fails, with it shall fall the
world!
Still the Coliseum, when it was built
at the beginning of the Christian era,
had better chance of lasting than the
Washington monument. 1t was far
more wonderful structure, and the
mechanical skill required in building
it was quite as great. The largest
theater to-day in the world will not
seat 1000 spectators. The Coliseum
has seats for $1,000 and standing room
for 20, 900 more. Its walls were made
of heavier blocks than those in the
Washington monument, and they ran
157 feet high. It's interior was so
large that the Washington monument
could have beer laid inside of it with
out disturbing its masonry, and of the
one-third of the gigantic structure
which remains after Rome has been
building from it and ravaging it for
centuries. the materials alone are said
to be worth S2,50O,OOO. This is twice
as much as the cost of the Washington
monument, and 100000 to spare.
1t was greater work than this to
erect the Colossus of Rhodes, that i'm
mense braZen statue, 14O feet high,
| which stood at the entrance of the
harbor so that tall-masted boats could
sail between its huge legs without in
jury. This statue weighed nearly
100000 pounds, and after an earth
quake overthrow it, as one indeed may
sometime do the monument, its ruins
lay for nine centuries, and at the end
of that time it took caravan of 900
camels to carry the metal away.
Look at Pompey's column which
still stands overlooking the Mediter-
ranean on the outside of Alexandria,
in Egypt. A small shaft, 81 feet high
and feet in diameter, of the heaviest
of red granite, raised upon pedestal
1O4 feet high. The mechanical skill
required to elevate that immense shaft
| and to bring it thousand miles down
the Nile, is quite equal to anything of
the present. And then the pyramids!
Liz up VI ohO SioaG Py thAhso Aao d
platform 80 feet square, only three
feet less than this Washington monu-
ment where its pyramidal top begins.
The blocks of which the pyramids are
constructed are much larger than
those in the Washington monument,
and it is said it took ten years to make
the road over which to carry these
heavy stones. 1t took whole cities of
men to build the pyramid of Cheops,
and according to Herodotus the rad
ishes and onions which the workmen
ate cost once and one-half the price of
the Washington monument. Thispyr
amid has an area of thirteen acres at
its base, and its height is 4S3 feet. 1t
must have cost billions to buil1 it, and
resting in the dry atmosphere of the
desert one would think that here at
least would be morsel too hard and
dry for the tooth of time. But the
wind and the weather have eaten even
into the pyramids, and their beauty
and splendor show the effect of decay.
The Washington monument in the
humid atmosphere of America, as it
IL Il