ABSTRACT
J. AMPERE ALEXANDRIA, one of the beautiful cities of the world, must have presented a marvellous appearance to the throng of learned men who congregated
there as well as to the touts in quest of a soft job. The marble city lay along the quays washed by the shores of the Mediterranean; right through the middle the Canopic Street cut the town in two halves and in front of it was the island of Pharos on which Ptolemy Philadelphus had built what has been called one of the marvels of the world. This was the lighthouse, built of gleaming white marble which was square at the bottom, octagon-shaped in the middle and round at the top. It might have been taken for some mighty mausoleum, had there not been a light at the summit to guide the ships to the entrance of the harbour, reflected by means of a gigantic mirror designed by a Chinese workman. The monster lighthouse is said by old writers to have contained three hundred rooms, in which you could easily lose yourself, and a staircase so gently graded that beasts of burden could walk up to the top of the building. It took twelve years to build and Ptolemy I I, who had spent vast sums of money on it and on the island generally with its fortresses at either end, must have looked at it with satisfaction when it was completed.
