Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/394

380 those established by existing statutes with respect to the standard weights and measures heretofore provided. And it is hereby provided that no shire town in which there may be two or more sealers of weights and measures shall for that reason be required to procure additional sets of the metric weights and measures.

The deputy and Treasurer shall verify, adjust, and seal all metric weights and measures that may be brought to him for that purpose, and he shall receive a reasonable compensation therefor; and the sealer of weights and measures in each town that shall receive the standard metric weights and measures, as hereinbefore provided, shall verify, adjust, and seal all metric weights and measures that may be brought to him for that purpose from within the county in which such town is situated, and he shall receive a reasonable compensation therefor; but he shall claim no fees for any sealing, verification, or adjustment, for the performance of which he may otherwise receive compensation by salary paid by the town.

All persons using weights or measures of the metric system for the purpose of selling any goods, wares, merchandise, or other commodities, shall have them adjusted, sealed, and recorded, by some authorized sealer of weights and measures, and shall thereafter be responsible for the correctness and exactness of the same; and no person using illegally or fraudulently the metric weights and measures shall thereby be freed from any liabilities or penalties to which he would have been exposed in case the weights and measures employed had been the ordinary weights and measures heretofore and now in use in this Commonwealth.

Cleopatra's Needle.—This obelisk, of Syenitic granite, sixty-eight and one-half feet long, six feet eleven inches wide on each side of the base, tapering to four feet nine inches near the summit, is 3,300 years old, and was set up by Sesostris in front of the temple at Heliopolis. It was brought to Alexandria by Cleopatra about the year 40, and has been there, standing or lying, upward of 1,800 years. It is of rose-colored stone, and is covered with hieroglyphics. It was presented many years ago by the Pasha of Egypt to the Prince Regent of England, and the British Government accepted the gift, but have never been able to get it transported to London. At length Dr. Erasmus Wilson, a distinguished surgeon of that metropolis, and known as the author of books on skin-diseases, concluded to pay the expenses himself of transporting the great monolith, and bargained with a Mr. Dixon to bring it to England and erect it on the Thames Embankment for £10,000.

The plan proposed for transporting the "Needle" to England is described as follows in Chambers's Journal: "The obelisk is to be fixed by cross-divisions or diaphragms of wood in a cylindrical vessel formed of wrought-iron plates. There will be seven diaphragms, and consequently nine water-tight compartments. For safety, the obelisk will be inclosed in wood and well packed, a little below the central level of the vessel, which will be closed at both ends. When completed, with the obelisk inside, the vessel will be about ninety-five feet in length and fifteen feet across. After being rolled into the sea and towed to the harbor, it will be ballasted and be provided with a keel, deck, sail, and rudder. For these operations, man-holes will have been left in the cylinder. These holes will be opened, so that access may be had to all the compartments. There will be no part into which a man may not enter if necessary until the cylinder is finally sealed up for floating. The vessel will be in charge of two or three skilled mariners, for whom a small cabin on deck will be provided. It will be towed the whole way by a steam tug, the sail being simply for steadying the cylinder." There is likely to be some delay in executing this project, for it is now reported that the Egyptian who owns the sand around the obelisk objects to the removal of the shaft, claiming it as his property.

Education and Crime.—In a recent number of the Polytechnic Review is an abstract of a paper on "Useful Education," by Mr. R. Bingham, containing many facts and observations that are worthy of notice in these times of "forcing" in education. Mr. Bingham does not believe that school-education tends to diminish crime. He says that the ratio of crime to population is less in Ireland than in Massachusetts, and that property is more secure in Italy, with its many millions of illiterates, than in the Old Bay State with all its schools. Of the 373 prisoners received last year into the Western Penitentiary of the State of Pennsylvania, 285 had attended public schools, 19 private schools, and 69 had never gone to school. Of the 2,383 prisoners received into the Eastern Penitentiary of the same