Through the Key Hole - RoseCroix.org.au

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Fortunately where this happened, the water was shallow enough to
allow the cylinder to be salvaged and its recovery was done by yet
another Freemason, Kohn Dixon, in the 42nd year of the reign of
Queen Victoria. and it was erected on the Embankment and unveiled
in 1878.
Someone had an idea to make the celebration more memorable
( dare I suggest yet another Freemason?). In contrast to the hieroglyphics
giving clues to a culture some 3000 years old, why not provide
future discoverers with clues to contemporary British culture
and to that end, two earthenware jars were sealed in the base of the
obelisk into which had been placed objects indicating the greatest
achievements of the British Empire such as a complete set of newly
minted coins.
The complete list of objects placed in the jars was carried in the
London Times on the day of the unveiling, but no-one seems to
have noticed, certainly not commented on, a very ordinary object
placed in one of the sealed jars.
It was a 24 inch metal ruler. What you might ask, was the British
Empire’s achievement that this ruler symbolised?
There is no doubt in my mind that this ruler, known to Freemasons
as the “ twenty four inch gauge” does in fact represent the Craft
symbolically.
The moral lesson it illustrates is the proper use of the Mason’s
twenty-four hour day, dividing it into periods of work, rest and charity.
Apparently the Metropolitan Works Board, or its superiors, or all of
them, decided to quietly place the 24 inch gauge inside the base of
the obelisk perhaps to tell archaeologists thousands of years later,
that one of the greatest achievements of the British Empire is in fact
the Ancient Order of Free and Accepted Masons?
The sister obelisk to Cleopatra’s Needle is, again through the efforts
of the Freemasons, erected in Washington and, in fact, is often featured
when pictures of the White House are shown in movies on
television.