Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1870 — The Seven Wonders of the World. [ARTICLE]

The Seven Wonders of the World.

( BY THB “ FAT CONTRIBUTOR." Many people don’t know what the seven wonders of the world are, and therefore wouldn’t recognise them if they saw them. They are— First. “ The Great Pyramid of Egypt," built by an old mutton choircalled Cheops, kieg ofEgypt, Illinois. He was twenty years in building it—he and about 360,000 others, whose names we have forgotten. There is no peer-amid modern monuments for Cheops. Second. “Babylon the Great." ’ The walls of the city being sixty miles in circumference and eighty-seven feet thick, they naturally came very high. Walls high that year anyhow. The walls surrounding the palace of Nebuchadnezzar were six miles in extent, to prevent his escape when let out to grass. Hanging wasn’t “played out” in Babylon, for we read of their “hanging gardens." Third. “ The gold- and ivory statue of Jupiter Olympus," done by Phidias, the greatest living artist now dead. There is some dispute as to the nationality of Jew Peter O’Lympus, but the name denotes that ho wa» a Hebrew of Irish extraction. Fourth. “The Temple of Diana of the Ephesians," at Ephesus. It was built of cedar, cypress and gold, with a brown stone front and mansard roof. It had a hall and side entrance, bath-room, hot and cold waler on every floor, was convenient to the horse cats, and within five minutes’ walk of the Post Office. Diana used to say IT she was to dts arty-where, she would prefer to depart from her temple at Ephesus. Fifth “ The Mausoleum, or Tomb of Mausoius," efqcted at Halicarnassus. Mau solus was a Greek who invented the mausoleum, His original model of it may be seen at the Patent Office in Washington. Sixth. “ The Pharos of Alexandria,” an ai.eh.nl lighthouse built at Alexandria by POT of the Vharaoh* Heavy .old light- . I**■*' -' » --

house that must have been, four hundred and fifty feet high. Seventh. “ The Colossus of Rhodes,” giant figure 105 feet high, placed across the harbor of Rhodes, with a stride of fifty feet from rock to rock, of which there are two. The Louisville mail-boats easily passed beneath it without lowering their smoke-stacks. A lamp burned in its right hand. It was burned in with a hotpoker. An internal staircase led to Its summit, and around its neck was suspended a glass, in which ships might be discerned as far off as the Egyptian coast By the aid of the glass you could “ Tell Aunt Rody ” (who lives at Rhodes) as far as you could see her. The Cardiff Giant is a distant relative. The Colossus was thrown down by an earthquake, in a square hold. It was the champion wrestler, and nothing but an earthquake could throw it. The contest now lies between Vanderbilt and Fisk for the title of Colossus of Roadt. If you have any more wonders, bring ’em on. — Cincinnati Times.