Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/170

160 statement. In 1794, however, it had been actually measured to be two hundred and fifty feet eleven inches high. The Pillar of Pompey at Alexandria, the Minaret of the Mosque of Hassan at Cairo, and the Alexandrine Column at St. Petersburg, all bow their heads to the Kootub.

“The base of this Minar is a polygon of twenty-four sides, altogether measuring one hundred and forty-seven feet. The shaft is of a circular form, and tapers regularly from the base to the summit. It is divided into five stories, round each of which runs a bold, projecting balcony, supported upon large and richly-carved brackets, having balustrades that give to the pillar a most ornamental effect.

“The exterior of the basement story is fluted alternately in twenty-seven angular and semicircular faces. In the second story the flutings are only semicircular; in the third they are all angular. The fourth story is circular and plain; the fifth again has semicircular flutings. The relative height of the stories to the diameter of the base has quite scientific proportions. The first, or lowermost story, is ninety-five feet from the ground, or just two diameters in height; the second is fifty-three feet farther up, the third forty feet farther. The fourth story is twenty-four feet above the third, and the fifth has a height of twenty-two feet. The whole column is just five diameters in height. Up to the third story the Minar is built of fine red sandstone. From the third balcony to the fifth the building is composed chiefly of white Jeypoor marble. The interior is of the gray rose-quartz stone. The ascent is by a spiral staircase of three hundred and seventy-six steps to the balcony of the fifth story, and thence are three more steps to the top of the present stone-work. Inside it is roomy enough, and full of openings for the admission of light and air. The steps are almost ‘lady-steps,’ and the ascent is quite easy. The ferruginous sandstone has been well selected to lend a rich, majestic appearance to the column. The surface of that material seems to have deepened in reddish tint by exposure for ages to the oxygen of the atmosphere. The white marble of the upper stories sits like a tasteful