Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 1 of 2)

If we reduce in the same manner the labour, expended in constructing the London and Birmingham Railway, to one common denomination, the result is twenty-five thousand million cubic feet of material (reduced to the same weight as that used in constructing the pyramid) lifted one foot high, or nine thousand two hundred and sixty-seven million cubic feet more than was lifted one foot high in the construction of the pyramid; yet this immense undertaking has been performed by about twenty thousand men in less than five years.

From the above calculation have been omitted all the tunnelling, culverts, drains, ballasting, and fencing, and all the heavy work at the various stations, and also the labour expended on engines, carriages, wagons, &c. These are set off against the labour of drawing the materials of the pyramid from the quarries to the spot where they were to be used – a much larger allowance than is necessary.

As another means of comparison, let us take the cost of the railway and turn it into pence, and allowing each penny to be one inch and thirty-four hundredths wide, it will be found that these pence laid together, so that they all touch, would more than form a continuous band round the earth at the equator.

As a third mode of viewing the magnitude of this work, let us take the circumference of the earth in round numbers at one hundred and thirty million feet. Then, as there are about four hundred million cubic feet of earth to be moved in the railway, we see that this quantity of material alone, without looking to any thing else, would, if spread in a band one foot high and one foot broad, more than three times encompass the earth at the equator. – Lecount.

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Saturday Magazine.

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Saturday Magazine.

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Monthly Magazine.

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Harmonies of Nature.

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Strabo mentions the sepulchre, lib. xvii. p. 808.

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Herodotus; Diodorus; Strabo; Pliny; Plutarch; Arrian; Quintus Curtius; Rollin; Maupertuis; Montague; Maillet; Pococke; Shaw; Savary; Norden; Sandwich; Browne; Denon; Belzoni; Salt; Clarke; Wilkinson; Lecount.