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Page 14 text:
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The Pharos of Alexandria J UST OFF the coast of Egypt where the western branch of the Nile flows into the Mediterranean, stood in ancient time the little island of Pharos, called by the natives the 44 Garden of the Fig Trees ” The mainland beside this island was selected by Alexander the Great as the location of the city which was to bear his proud name. Cfc, The little island of Pharos, however, was still more favored, for there Ptolemy, to whom Egypt fell at the death of Alexander, erected the lighthouse which awed the ancient world and which far surpasses in magnitude any constructed by modern man. It is estimated that the structure was between four hun¬ dred and six hundred feet high. It compared with our tallest sky¬ scrapers of today and towered into the air probably three times as high as any lighthouse of modern times. The great mirror of finely wrought glass on the summit was considered to be the greatest of the marvels of the Pharos, rather than the structure be neath. Nothing is known of its size except that it was so large that when the Arabs removed it they were unable to put it back. The mirror reflected the suns rays a hundred miles or more out to sea, and at night reflected the less powerful light of the lan¬ terns or fires. Century after century the tower stood while Al¬ exandria yielded place to Rome, and Rome reached her zenith of power and declined. In 955, after Pharos had stood for over a thousand years, an earthquake threw down a large part of the summit. Two centuries later a domed mosque was built on its summit by the Mohammedans. Thus, the Faithful were able to pray high up where the air was cooled by sea breezes. The Ar¬ abs called the tower the Minara, and to this day every Moslem mosque has a minaret suggestive of the Pharos of Alexandria. «i Part of the tower was still standing when Columbus discov¬ ered the New World, but when the passage around Africa to India was discovered in 1498, Alexandria declined rapidly. The ruins of the Pharos gradually disappeared and the site where it stood has been forgotten. The end of the island where it stood has now weathered entirely away.
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