gcls_WFP_116

ROTARY INTERNATIONAL
ROTARY CLUB OF CAIRO
PRESIDENT
R. C. MARTIN
HON. TREASURER,
R. E. MOORE.
HON. SECRETERY,
W. R. TODD,
c/o THOS. COOK & SON Ltd.,
CAIRO.
[logo of gear inscribed with the words: ROTARY INTERNATIONAL]
HEADQUARTERS --- SHEPHEARDS HOTEL.
Meetings --- Wednesday ; lunch at 1.30, p.m.
DIRECTORS
A. ALEXANDER.
C. BAEHLER.
T. CASDAGLI.

August 8th, 1930.
Mr. James A. Winn,
President,
Rotary Club of Greenville,
GREENVILLE, S.C.
U. S. A.
Dear President Winn,
In reply to your letter of July 17th, I am sending you a small piece of granite from the Great Pyramids, near Cairo. Whilst Pyramids, Temples and Toms in this district are built of limestone, most of them are faced with granite, all of which came from the granite quarries above the first Nile Cataract at Aswan. You will realize the marvellous engineering skill of the Ancient Egyptians when I say that some of the huge granite blocks used in the constructions of the Temple of the Second Pyramid weigh as much as 25 tons.

These blocks had to be extracted from the mother rock and transported to the Nile (possibly on rollers), loaded on a sailing vessel, brought 600 miles down the river and then rolled into position on the high plateau above the Nile valley, near Cairo. All that took place about 3,500 years before Christ, and yet the walls and square pillars are in perfect alignment to-day.

The small piece of granite which I am sending you is a fragment of just such a piece, and I hope it will encourage the members of your Club and the boys in whom you are interested, to read up something of the wonders of Egypt.

As it happens, Rotarian Augusts Perry of Baltimore Club is in Cairo and I have given him the stone, as he has kindly undertaken to forward it on to you when he returns to America.

With all good wishes,
Yours sincerely,
[signature]

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