A red granite obelisk about 21 meters high stands on the Victoria Embankment in London. Known as Cleopatra's Needle, the name is misleading because the obelisk predates the Egyptian queen Cleopatra by more than 1,000 years. The structure was originally located in Egypt and was gifted to Britain in 1819. However, the British government did not cover the costs of transporting it to London, which led to a complex and dangerous journey across the Atlantic. To move the obelisk, an innovative engineering solution was devised. A 28-meter iron cylinder, designed by engineer John Dixon and built at the Thames Iron Works, was constructed to encase the obelisk and transform it into a floating vessel. The cylinder was assembled around the obelisk in Alexandria by Waynman Dixon, John's brother. The vessel, named Cleopatra, was equipped with a bow, stern, rudder, bilge keels, a mast, and a cabin. It was intended to be towed to London by the ship Olga, commanded by Captain Booth, with Captain Henry Carter in charge of the cylinder and a crew of Maltese sailors. The journey began on September 21, 1877, but on October 14, 23 days later, a storm hit in the Gulf of Gascony. The Cleopatra rolled violently and became uncontrollable, forcing the disconnection of the towing cables. In an attempt to rescue the crew, six sailors from the Olga volunteered but their boat capsized, and all six died. Captain Booth later rescued the remaining crew members of the Cleopatra and declared the vessel "abandoned and sinking." The cylinder drifted in the gulf until the steamer Fitzmaurice took it to Ferrol, Spain, for repairs. A salvage bonus was claimed, but the amount was later reduced by the Admiralty Court. Eventually, another steamer, the Anglia, towed the Cleopatra to England, where it arrived in the Thames estuary on January 21, 1878. The obelisk was erected on September 12, 1878, nearly eight months after its arrival. The obelisk was a gift from Mehmet Ali, the Viceroy of Egypt, to Britain in 1819, in memory of British victories at Aboukir and Alexandria. Three years after its erection, in 1881, two bronze sphinxes were added to either side of the monument, cast in Pimlico. A plaque at the base of the monument honors the six sailors who died in the Gulf of Gascony. Cleopatra's Needle has a twin in Paris, located at Place de la Concorde.