OUR INHERITANCE ehdize GREAT PYRAMID je zam DT 63 ·566 1890 PARAMUSTAVAL to S 2011 A 544681 17 PLA Sh University of Michigan Libraries 1817 G DRY ARTES SCIENTIA VERITAS OUR INHERITANCE IN THE GREAT PYRAMID. LONDON: PRINTED BY W. 1. RICHARDSON, 4 AND 5, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, W.C. FRONTISPIECE 3000 TO 2000 8.0. DATES 2000 TO 1000 8.0 DATES 1000 B.C. TO 0. DATES 0 TO 1000 A.D. DATES BABEL 2500 8.0. MORE OR LEOG 1000 A.D. TO 1070 AD DATES TEMPLES, OBELISKS, STATUES OF THE NEW EMPIRE AT THEBES IN UPPER EGYPT. 1900 TO 1200 B.C. 14 ENTRUBOAN BURIAL MOUND 1000 0.0. THE AQUEDUCT. DENDERAH TEMPLE 500 0.0. 33. 24 HDDDDDDDS HYDE BONAT in חריותו ופחד 34 THE GREAT PYRAMID OF JEEZEH IN SOYPT. 2170 8.0. 35 38 G. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT ETHIOPIAN PYRAMID-TOMB 700 8.0 16 39 3. ROME. TRAJAN'S THE AMPHITHEATRE COLUMN. 50 A.0. PLANETARY TEMPLE PYRAMID AT BABYLON, 1500 TO 1000 G HINDU PAGODA. INDIAN AND AMERICAN TEMPLE-PYRAMID. ST. SERNIN TOULOUSE. YORK. OANTERBURY. PHILE TEMPLE 800 20 45 RES wwwer KANSASTER TEMPLE OF SOLOMON ON THE MABONRIED SUMMIT OF THE HILL OF ZION, 1004 B.C. EARTHEN MOUND OF ALYATTES, ASIA MINOR, 1500 B.C. M ASSYRIA 600 0.0 44 THE PANTHEON 800 A.D. JAVA. PISA MAHOMETAN BALISBURY. TOWERS CHARTRER ST. STEPHEN'S VIENNA 26 NANKIN. MOSCOW. LATER PYRAMIDS, OF THE OLD EMPIRE IN LOWER EGYPT 2:00 TO 1950 BC. ATHENS 480 B.O. 2.8 CONSTANTINOPLE ST. SOPHIA ONUROH, 890 AD. ST. PETER'8, STRASBURG. ROME. PYRAMID-TEMPLE OF PROTO-CHALD-LA AT EREK, IN LOWER MSOPATAMIA 2000 BC. PLATE 1. 22. DOWN BRDZO HARAD THE JEWISH TEMPLE ON ZION HILL, AS REBUILT BY HEROD THE GREAT, SO B.C. 32 IRISH BUDHIST TOPES. ROUND TOWERS 900 A.D. 600 400 200 200 100 800 O 200 100 O 300 200 CHOLULA, TEMPLE- PYRAMID IN MEXICO, 1000 A.D. $7.151/ 100 300 200 -100 O O 500 400 300 200 100 HEIGHT IN FEET. HEIGHT IN FEET. HEIGHT IN FEET. HEIGHT IN FEET. HEIGHT IN FEET. ST. PAULS, KING'S CROSS RAILY. BT. LONDON. VIOTORIA TOWER. WESTMINSTER. CHIMNEYS OF +TOWNSEND'S CHIMNEY, GLASGOW. OOAL BURNING MANUFACTORIES TENNENT'S OHIMNEY, OLASGOW. A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN THE STONE ARCHITECTURE OF ALL AGES, IN TIME, AND IN HEIGHT. } OUR INHERITANCE IN THE GREAT PYRAMID WITH TWENTY-FIVE EXPLANATORY PLATES, SHOWING THE MORE CRUCIAL PARTS OF THIS REALLY ANTI- EGYPTIAN AND MOST PRIMEVAL STRUCTURE, IN PLAN, ELEVATION "( C. PIAZZI SMYTH, F.R.S.E., F.R.A.S. AND SECTION "" O LORD OF HOSTS THE HEAVENS ARE THINE, THE EARTH ALSO is THINE; AS FOR THE WORLD, AND THE FULNESS THEREOF, THOU HAST FOUNDED THEM." Psalm 1xxxix., 8, 11. 1 BY LATE ASTRONOMER-ROYAL FOR SCOTLAND • • CC THOU HAST ORDERED ALL THINGS IN MEASURE AND NUMBER AND WEIGHT.” Wisdom xi,, 20. BECAUSE THAT WHICH MAY BE KNOWN OF GOD is MANIFEST IN THEM; FOR GOD HATH SHOWED IT UNTO THEM. FOR THE INVISIBLE THINGS OF IIIM FROM THE CREATION OF THE WORLD ARE CLEARLY SEEN, REING UNDERSTOOD BY THE THINGS THAT ARE MADE. Romans i., 19, 20. NEW YORK ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & CO. 38, WEST TWENTY THIRD STREET " · 1890 Fifth Edition. HA174. 6/26:40. FRIENDS LIBRARY, 142 N. 16TH STREET, PHILADELPHIA. : + DT 63 i566 1890 75 1 General Lefrany -archinen M Ale alin 5-1/-57 82 TO THE CONTINUED MEMORY OF THE LATE JOHN TAYLOR, GOWER STREET, LONDON (DEPARTED JULY, 1864, AGED 83 YEARS), AUTHOR OF (( THE GREAT PYRAMID: WHY WAS IT BUILT AND WHO BUILT IT?" THE NOW FIFTH EDITION OF THIS FURTHER ATTEMPT TO APPLY ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC EXAMINATION TO TEST HIS EXCEEDINGLY MOMENTOUS THEORY AND MOST PRECIOUS DISCOVERY OF THE AGE FOR ALL MANKIND, IN SO FAR AS IT IS PROVED TO BE TRUE,- Is Dedicated BY THE FRIEND OF HIS FEW LAST DAYS, BUT ADMIRER OF ALL HIS LONG AND EARNEST CHRISTIAN LIFE, CLOVA, RIPON, February, 1890. C. PIAZZI SMYTH. WITH the publisher's permission I have added three more of the very latest, or actually occurring, Pyramidal facts. (1) From a letter of February 7th, 1890, dated Brussels : "I have been closely occupied all the last year with a memoir on 'The Correlation of Physical Forces ;' also with the mathematical theory of terrestrial magnetism, wherein I arrive at a result of immense importance. It is, that the present state of relief of the Globe's surface (Asiatic and American) dates from an epoch nearer to the present age, than 4073 B.C. That is, it demonstrates the Deluge as a historical fact, co- incident with a universal cataclysm. The theory even fixes the date between 2500 and 2600 B.C., agreeably with the Hebrew text of the Scriptures. This is evidently a new argument for your theory of the Great Pyramid. The diagonal of the King's Chamber there, in earth-commensurable inches = 515. This quantity seems to express the duration in years of the 'pre- cession' of the magnetical poles of the earth, in their inclina- tion to the mechanical axis thereof; just as the diagonal of the whole base of the Great Pyramid expresses in the same terms, the far longer precession of the poles of rotation of the world as inclined to the normal of the Ecliptic. Quetelet by pure science arrived at the number 512, while Brück found 516.” (2) The latest development of Mr. II. R. Shaw's theory of the connections between the Oracle in Solomon's Temple to God and the so-called Queen's Chamber of the Great Pyramid, appears in the Banner of Israel for February 5th, 1890. (3) And the last l'yramidal news that has reached me says, "I have just returned from a visit to Lower Egypt, undertaken for the purpose of inspecting the Great Pyramid. You will be grieved to hear that its casing stones were, on a day in December last, being carried away for the purpose of building a wall round a new hotel at Ghizeh. That I saw !"-H. B. M. Is this a wilful hurrying on, by the powers that be, of the judgments of the last days?-C. P. S. PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION. THE HE world has certainly not been standing still during the eighties of the nineteenth century; nor has Great Pyramid research; or, what is vastly more important, the progress of the modern accomplishment of the ancient prophecies of God, respecting the Divine direction of this world, and the final outcome of its human affairs; including, that "Princes shall "come out of Egypt;" and "Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her "hands unto God." Wherefore it seems high time in 1890, that the public, which has so favourably taken up the first four editions of "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," between the years 1864 and 1880, should now be informed, to at least the best of the present writer's ability, of all realized results since that last date; both as to the increased knowledge gained of the primeval building itself, and the part it is beginning to fulfil as "a sign "and a witness unto the Lord of Hosts in the latter day." The late Fourth Edition, therefore, of this book has been carefully compared with current facts during 1888 and 1889; and all new data found well proved, have been added to its MSS. Though the bulk of the now printed volume of the Fifth has been considerably reduced, and its price lessened, by a very strenuous attempt at a general condensation of the story; as agreeable to, and rendered possible by, the advanced knowledge of the public-touching the Great Pyramid and the Bible Prophecies, in the year 1890 A.D., rather than what usually obtained in 1864 and many subsequent years. Although, therefore, the whole of the twenty-five instructive plates of the former Edition have been necessarily retained,-the letterpress has been reduced from 664 to 445 pages. And yet there have been incorporated into the latter, 31 pages of appendices by mostly new authors; showing how eagerly the sacred and scientific Pyramid theory of John Taylor is now being pursued, not only by Anglo-Saxon, as well as Anglo- Israel, North America and Great Britain; but also by heroic Belgium, though in the French language. While our final Appendix xv. will indicate how much has been already pro- duced for the harvest of 1890, in the first three weeks only of the new year. CONTENTS. PART L I. GEOGRAPHY AND EXTERIOR OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. CHAPTERS I. TO V. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT OF THE PRESENT GENERAL QUESTION TOUCHING THE GREAT PYRAMID. Number of Pyramids in Egypt The one Great Pyramid is peculiar John Taylor's induction from religious history Profane Egyptian testimony, untrustworthy Modern Mathematical science will be employed here instead CHAPTER II. GEOMETRICAL PROPORTIONS, OF THE OUTSIDE OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. John Taylor's first discovery, the π proportion A new inquiry into it by angle Howard Vyse's Casing Stones' angle • • • John Taylor's proposition confirmed by the Great Pyramid's angle Subsequent Confirmations. Angles of all other Egyptian Pyramids are different New proofs of the perfection of ancient work at Great Pyramid CHAPTER III. STANDARD OF LENGTH EMPLOYED FOR THE TRANSCENDENTAL FEATURES OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. Base-side length by the best modern authorities from 1799 to 1883 Sunk Socket floor, versus Pavement surface, Base-side Lengths Surface appearance of the long-hidden Standard of Length A Day and Year Scale, in terms of a vital Earth Standard Earth's axis and Year-commensuric results, by socket-floor size Beginning of reference to the Great Pyramid's numbers Base-side lengths of all other Egyptian Pyramids absolutely fail The Great Pyramid cubit versus the modern French Mètre PAGE 3 4 • 567 9 12 14 15 16 19 20 24 26 27 29 30 33 36 37 PART II.] ix CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. EARTH-SIZE AND SUN-DISTANCE BOTH EXPRESSED IN THE GREAT PYRAMID. Latest published lengths for the Earth's Polar Axis Ordnance Survey's Determination of that Length Other Diameters of the Earth, besides the Polar, in four Latitudes Great Pyramid's Solar analogy for distance Sun Distance = Great Pyramid's Height, × 109 The Great Pyramid before Science • Heights of all other Egyptian Pyramids, inconsequent Venus-Transit for modern Sun Distance, in 1889 Variations among Great Pyramid's Sucket floors Recent unjust shortening of Great Pyramid's Base-side Length • • CHAPTER V. GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. PART II Orientation of its sides by high Astronomy Possibility of Azimuthal shifting in the Crust of the Earth Popular ideas of Astronomical Orientation, in grievous error Further test of Change by Latitude observations Orientation of all other early idolatrous structures, oppositional Chorographical refinements about the Great Pyramid Still further Geographical fulfilments Of the mental accompaniments for these several facts Pavement surfaces and Socket floors' diverse levels and base-breadths COMPENDIUM OF LEADING MEASURES of GeographY AND EXTERIOR OF THE GREAT PYRAMID IN 1888. Including, Latitude, Levels, Height, Breadth of Base, Shape, Material and respective heights of all the Masonry cour es Caliph Al Mamoun attacks the Northern Flank His party storms the Grand Gallery and King's Chamber Disappointment of all concerned in that violence • • HISTORY AND INTERIOR OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. CHAPTERS VI. TO X. CHAPTER VI. AN ENTRY MADE, FIRST IN CLASSIC TIMES. What the Ancients knew about the Interior of the Great Pyramid Between the Classic and the Arabian days Mediæval Arabians take their turn · PAGE 39 40 41 42 43 45 45 46 48 49 51 52 55 59 65 67 69 70 71 74-78 81 84 85 87 90 92 X [CHAP. VII. CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. HISTORY AND RESEARCH CONTINUED; FROM MOSLEM TO OUR OWN DAYS. Egypt has to accomplish its Biblically prophecied Destinies The Acme of the Burden of Egypt The European mind enters into the Great Pyramid question The real place of burial of King Cheops, not the Great Pyramid The exclusively Tombic theory, shaken John Taylor's Metrological Theory Practical Examination thereof Qualities of the Pyramid's Coffer's "Quarter" Measure • CHAPTER VIII. THE COFFER'S SUBSTANCE, SHAPE, AND SIZE, FURTHER EXAMINED. Granite its true material; its measures stated The Sarcophagus theory of the Coffer 106 108 Of the proved Capacity of the Coffer 71,250 cubic Pyramid Inches 110 Still later and more numerous Measures of the Coffer Granite Sawing and Drilling at G. P. with jewelled implements 110 111 ► • • CHAPTER IX. DENSITY AND SURFACE TEMPERATURE, OF BOTH EARTH AND GREAT PYRAMID. Ante-Chamber Granite Symbolisms The Wall courses of the King's Chamber, a grand work in granite The really Pyramid Number of both them and the Stones in them A marked portion of King's Chamber and Coffer are mutually com- mensurable in Pyramid numbers Commensurabilities of King's Chamber and whole Great Pyramid More symbolical hints from the Ante Chamber Granite Leaf in the Ante-Chamber Earth's Mean Density already touched on, but required more exactly Modern Natural Philosophy experiments on the Earth's Mean Density Earth-Density Number irrefragably set up in Great Pyramid Temperature corrections, and how effected King's Chamber Measures specially accurate and numerous Mr. James Simpson's Sums of the Squares; the height is peculiar Mr. F. Petrie's Measures and omissions, but earthquake notes King s Chamber measures restore the Exterior of Great Pyramid Ante-Chamber Symbolisms and formulæ Inches in the Granite Leaf, by late Major Tracey, R.A · • • * • ▸ Absolute Temperature of King's Chamber Observed Temperatures at and near the Great Pyramid Temperature and Pressure data for the Coffer's Weight and Capacity Measures • CHAPTER X. CONFIRMATIONS OF THE EXTERIOR, BY INTERIOR MEASURES OF GREAT PYRAMID. • • • PAGE 95 97 98 100 101 102 103 103 • • 113 114 116 117 118 120 121 122 123 125 126 128 128 130 132 134 136 138 140 144 PART IIIxi 1.. CONTENTS. ] Recent measures of the Pyramid cubit and its divisions in the granite leaf T in the Granite Leaf, contended against, but proved The 35th Pyramid Masonry Course, and its confirmatory measures COMPENDIUM OF THE PRINCIPAL AND LEADING MEASURES OF THE INTERIOR OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. Including Entrance into Great Pyramid, Its further interior and descending progress, Subterranean Chamber, Ascending Passage, Grand Gallery, further ascending, Ante-Chamber, King's Chamber, Horizontal Passage, Queen's Chamber, and the Well PART III. NATIONAL WEIGHTS AND MEASURES, ALSO THOSE OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. CHAPTERS XI. To XV. CHAPTER XI. BRITISH METROLOGY; ITS HIGH DESCENT AND PYRAMIDAL BEARINGS. History of British Weights and Measures, from Magna Charta times Georgian and William the Fourth Eras Outbreak of Modern Agitators in favour of the French Mètre. Late near domination of Britain by the French Mètre D 161 163 163 165 Breadth of principles concerned in a Nation's Weights and Measures 167 Religious element in Weights and Measures origination Outcome of all that Science alone was capable of Great Pyramid goes still further 169 171 174 • The Pyramid connections of the Coffer, by Size Position of the Coffer in the King's Chamber Shape of the Coffer • · Practical application of the Coffer in Capacity measure Table of Pyramid Capacity Measure Pyramid, as compared with British, capacity measures International Appendix to Great Pyramid Capacity Measure 153-156 Ancient Anglo-Saxon Metrology in the United States of America, per Charles Latimer, C.E., Founder of Cl. Pyramid Institute 175-179 CHAPTER XII. PYRAMID CAPACITY MEASURE; AND THE COFFER'S GREAT PYRAMID AUTHENTICITY. • PAGE • · • 147 148 150 182 185 137 187 188 191 192 xii [CHAP. XIII. CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIII. PYRAMID WEIGHT MEASURE BASED ON EARTH'S MEAN DENSITY. Table of Pyramid weight measure, emphasizing the Unit pound The Old British Grain weights, nearer than the New ones Conflict of three different systems of Weights in Great Britain Table of Pyramid, compared with British, Weight measures Specific gravity interferes with Weight from Bulk Atmospheric Temperature and Pressure in National Systems Pyramid Weighings and Specific Gravities mensurable with the Earth by weight International Appendix to Great Pyramid Weight Measure Table of Pyramid Specific Gravities The Great Pyramid, on its socket-floor base, Harmoniously Com- Thermometers and their Scales in different countries French Academicians neglect the people's interests Nature's Standards of Temperature and Pressure Great Pyramid's Latitude bears on Atmospheric Standards Table of Great Pyramid's and Nature's Temperatures Angle Measure, 240° to circle • · Money, not in Great Pyramid Time Measures • • • • CHAPTER XIV. LINEAR AND SURFACE MEASURE OF GREAT PYRAMID STRICTLY EARTH COMMENSURABLE. • Unit of British Long Measure, really the Inch 208 Old British Inch nearer to Great Pyramid Inch than the modern one 209 Table of Great Pyramid Long Measure Pvramid, compared with British, Long Measure 210 211 The really Pyramidal Scale of the Present Ordnance Mile and Acre Survey of Great Britain International Appendix to Great Pyramid Linear Measure • CHAPTER XV. HEAT AND PRESSURE, ANGLE AND TIME; BOTH COsmical and PYRAMIDAL. • • • • · · PAGE 195 195 196 197 197 199 200 201 • 203 206 213 215 218 221 222 224 226 227 228 229 PART IV.] xiii CONTENTS. V PART IV. MORE THAN SCIENCE AT THE GREAT PYRAMID. CHAPTERS XVI. TO XX. CHAPTER XVI. THE SACRED CUBIT, OF THE BIBLE, OPPOSES THE CAINITE. • PAGE Of Cubits of Ancient renown 235 238 Origination of the Profane Cubit 20.68 British Inches long The Sacred Cubit of the Sethites and early Hebrews, 25 inches long 242 Opposing Presence of the Two Cubits in the Israelite camp Views of Moses and the Bible touching the Sacred Cubit 247 248 CHAPTER XVII. TIME MEASURES, AND THE FIXATION OF ABSOLUTE DATES. Professor Greaves on the Time-Passages of the Great Pyramid Modern Measures of the Passages Table of Entrance Passage Measures Astronomy of the Entrance Passage The Great Pyramid's use of a Polar Star Pleiades Year • Precession of the Equinoxes Summations of the Great Pyramid Astronomy • Of the Sacred Ark of the Covenant, and the Pyramid Coffer Of Solomon's Molten Sea, and the Pyramid Coffer The Ark of Noah, and the Pyramid Coffer • CHAPTER XIX. MECHANICAL AND PHYSICAL DATA IN GREAT PYRAMID. • • CHAPTER XVIII. BIBLICAL IS PYRAMIDAL, NOT EGYPTIAN, WISDOM, AND DERIVED FROM AN ENTIRELY OPPOSITE SOURCE. · Great Pyramid's Secret, Sacred, and Scientific Design Scientific theorems in the Queen's Chamber • • · Air Channels Modern promiscuous quarrying A secret sign for the wise in the Entrance Passage A once concealed Chamber (the Queen's) now open The Chief Place of Preservation and Honour of the Cubit of the • • • · · 252 255 256 257 260 263 265 267 270 275 277 290 Mr. Flinders Petrie's extraordinary denial of the mensuration testi- mony to the Sacred Cubit of 25·025 British Inches Newly discovered Air Channels in Queen's Chamber An unexplained feature in these Air Channels Addenda to Chapter XIX. 292 294 295 Masonry of the First Ascending, and other Passages in Great Pyramid 295 Angle Stones over present Entrance 296 281 284 285 286 289 289 xiv [CHAP. XX. CONTENTS. CHAPTER XX. SABBATIC AND MESSIANIC TIME, IN QUEEN'S Chamber, Grand GALLERY, ETC., OF GREAT PYRAMID. Queen's Chamber and its 7 marked approach The Biblical Week, in Queen's Chamber Grand Gallery's cubical commensurabilities Ramps, Ramp-holes, and the Well's upper mouth The Missing Ramp-stone * • person to be Messianic The Floor Roll of Human Religious History Mr. Casey's further demands The Crucial Tost Its final satisfaction Of the truly Sacred, touching the Great Pyramid The Sacred of the Pyramid, had already been pronounced by one • • • Modern Hieroglyphic interpretation versus Greek Scholarship Differential Chronology of the Egyptologists Table of Dates of the Egyptian Dynasties Of the Earliest Pyramid Egyptologic details of Early Kings Classic Names for Early Egyptian Kings Lives of the Kings Table of Kings using the profane symbol of Egyptian Pyramids General Architectural Facts of the Great Pyramid • PART V. THE PERSONAL, AND THE FUTURE, AT THE GREAT PYRAMID. The Great Sphinx The Recent Discovery about the Sphinx, exalting its antiquity Its final, utter, and contemptible overthrow D • CHAPTERS XXI. TO XXV. CHAPTER XXI. HIEROLOGISTS AND CHRONOLOGISTS, THE GREAT PYRAMID versus TEMPLES IDOLATROUS AND PROFANE. • The World's Chronology previous to the Great Pyramid's date Table of Noachian Deluge Dates • • ' • • CHAPTER XXII. THE SHEPHERD KINGS; THE ARCHITECT, OR RATHER SUPERINTEN- DENT, OF THE GREAT PYRAMID, AND THE DELUGE DATE. • The highly favoured and Kingly Man of Divine Inspiration, tem- porarily in Egypt during King Cheops' reign Of some of the Earlier Divinely assisted Departures out of Egypt before Moses PAGE 298 300 302 303 306 307 • • 309 311 313 313 317 323 325 327 329 331 333 334 335 337 339 342 344 346 348 350 352 PART V. XV ] CONTENTS. " CHAPTER XXIII. SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY, AND THE CHRISTIAN PROPHETIC GRAND GALLERY. Biblical views of Metrology in general Old Testament Witnesses to the Great Pyramid New Testament allusions to the Great Pyramid Of the Future in the Great Pyramid The Grand Gallery Prophecies of the Christian Religion Of the Upper Way of Escape from Further End CHAPTER XXIV. • Progress of the Communistic French Mètre Preparations made by the British Government The Stone prepared without Hands • Two ways of Religion, Christian and Christless, at the lower com- mencement of Grand Gallery • Parties to the Final Metrological Contest Human versus Divine Ultimate Rule • Air Channels' symbolic allusions to Christianity and Judaism The Great Step at Upper End of Grand Gallery, and Religious History in the Nineteenth Century in Great Britain. The Rise of Manasseh Two Sabbaths alluded to in the Great Pyramid The whole Number of Mankind Granite and its Religious significations in the Great Pyramid • • PREPARATIONS FOR A SINGLE UNIVERSAL METROLOGY; BUT WHICH, OF TWO MOST OPPOSITE KINDS. • Poetical Testimony to latter-day progress in Great Pyramid know- ledge Petrochi's account compared with Patrick Scott's, and both with The latest circle squarer brings out Pyramid measures in inches Sun-distance Measurers both national and individual Isaiah's • (A) Pyramid Testimony to God by Scientific proof of a Miracle in its own time (B) The same by Prophetical proof of the time of the Second Coming of Christ FURTHER DETAIL UNDER HEAD (^). No hasty private interpretation at Great Pyramid, by language addressed to any one nation alone But a long deferred publication, universal at last by latter day science open to all civilized peoples The value of π • ► • CHAPTER XXV. GENERAL SUMMATION; SECULAR AND SACRED, PERSONAL, PRE- SENT, AND FUTURE. • Great Pyramid's Sun-distance, and length of Solar Tropical-year in terms of a Solar day of the earth • • • PAGE 353 354 357 360. 361 363 364 365 366 370 372 373 374 376 378 380 384 384 388 389 390 390 391 392 392 393 393 394 xvi [CHAP. XXV. CONTENTS. Size and shape of the Farth Mean density of the Earth Precession of the Equinoxes ACCOMPANYING RELIGIOUS CHARACTERISTICS OF GREAT PYRAMID are totally distinct from the profane of all ancient Nations, even including Egypt itself Geographical position of Great Pyramid justified by Isaiah Honourable allusions to Great Pyramid, in both the Old and New • Testaments Fixations of absolute Historic dates, a prerogative of the Great Pyra- mid alone amongst all the buildings of the Earth Commensurabilities of the Great Pyramid, with the more celebrated structures described by measure in the Bible The use of the Great Pyramid still to come, and not prevented by its modern dilapidations TIMES AND SEASONS UNDER HEAD (B). • • • • Of the dates of the Two Comings of Christ Authority for Hebraic sacredness of Great Pyramid though in Egypt New policy of Egypt, as it was in 1877 • The Mohammedan Khedive of Egypt connects himself with the ancient idolatry of Egypt Also with the modern Metrologic atheism of France In 1879 he has to fly from his country In 1882 (the year of the ending of the first length of the Grand Gallery) Egypt, after suffering terrific slaughter, passes from the domination of the Mohammedan, to the gentler and Christian rule of British Israel One more reclamation for Pyramidal rectitude. Extraordinary denial by Mr. F. Petrie, as printed by the Royal Society, that anything particular occurred in Egypt during 1882. Opposite opinion of Dr. Grattan Guiness on the events of that year, and their confirmation of prophecies by Daniel Summation of Mr. F. Petrie's oppositions to the Sacred and Scientific theory of the Great Pyramid Divine fulfilments of all promised in the past, certain to come The Divinely inspired primeval Architect or Superintendent of the work at the Great Pyramid, after the completion of that build- ing, retired to Palestine, from whence he had emerged, and built there the City of Jerusalem on its now known site But for reasons far more ancient than anything in Jewish history, and ascending through the Deluge to the very creation of Adam law himself · • • • • ► · PAGE 394 395 396 396 397 397 398 399 399 401 401 402 403 405 406 407 407 408 408 409 409 410 412 APPENDICES KINDLY CONTRIBUTED. APPENDIX I. SHORT PROJECTION OF THE HEBREW INTO THE CHRISTIAN Grand GALLERY'S FLOOR, EXPLAINED • APPENDIX II. RAMP HOLES AND NUMBERS IN THE GRAND GALLERY, EXPLAINED 418 NOTE BY C.P.S. TO APPENDIX II. 419 APPENDIX III. THE GREAT STEP (OR ALTAR TO THE LORD) AND ITS QUINTO-SEX- TUPLE SIGNIFICANCE APPENDIX IV. FAHRENHEIT AND THE WILDERNESS PRINCIPLES OF ANGLO-SAXON METROLOGY. APPENDIX VIII. • CORRIGENDA IN SOME FORMER VOLUMES APPENDIX V. SPECIAL GREAT PYRAMID RESEARCHES ON ELEVEN DIFFERENT POINTS 429 APPENDIX VI. MOSAIC AND GREAT PYRAMID CHRONOLOGY APPENDIX VII. APPENDIX XI. LETTER FROM CLEVELAND, OHIO, U. S. APPENDIX IX. PHOTOGRAPHS OF GREAT PYRAMID NOTIFIED APPENDIX X. MODERN HIEROGLYPHICS OF THE APOCALYPSE and Great PYRAMID. APPENDIX XII. POSTSCRIPT TO PYRAMID METROLOGY. APPENDIX XIII. OBLIQUITY OF THE ECLIPTIC AT PYRAMID'S FOUNDATION PROGRESS ALREADY IN 1890 APPENDIX XIV. ON THE WEIGHT OF NOAH'S ARK APPENDIX XV. • INDEX OF THE WHOLE WORK, FOLLOWS • • • る ​PAGE . 427 • • 417 • 421 432 433 435 436 437 438 440 441 443 444 445 PLATES, OR GREAT PYRAMID GRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. (Engraved by Alex. Ritchie, Edinburgh.) GENERAL FEATURES AND COMPARATIVE BEARINGS OF GREAT PYRAMID. PLATE I. FRONTISPIECE: THE STONE ARCHITECTURE OF ALL AGES, IN TIME AND IN HEIGHT. II. GEOGRAPHY OF THE GREAT PYRAMID, BOTH FOR EGYPT AND THE WORLD). III. CHOROGRAPHY OF THE GREAT PYRAMID AND ITS NEIGHBOURS. IV. VERTICAL SECTIONS OF ALL THE JEEZEH GROUP OF PYRAMIDS. V. VERTICAL SECTIONS OF ALL THE RESIDUAL PYRAMIDS EGYPT. OF EXTERIOR OF GREAT PYRAMID AND ENTRANCE THERETO. VI. VERTICAL SECTION OF GREAT PYRAMID AND ITS ROCK-FAST HILL, Looking West. VII. GROUND PLAN OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. VIII. CASING-STONE REMNANTS OF THE GREAT AND SECOND PYRAMIDS. IX. CHAMBER AND PASSAGE SYSTEM OF GREAT PYRAMID. X. ENTRANCE INTO GREAT PYRAMID, FRONT ELEVATION, AND SIDE SECTION. DETAILS OF PASSAGES AND PRELIMINARY CHAMBERS. XI. QUEEN'S CHAMBER, SO CALLED, IN GREAT PYRAMID. XII. LOWER End of Grand GALLERY IN THE GREAT PYRAMID. XIII. END-ON VIEWS OF LENGTH IN THE GRAND GALLERY; Arabs ascending the Grand Gallery, southward; Arabs descending the Grand Gallery, northward. GRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. xix PLATE XIV. UPPER END OF GRAND GALLERY AND THE ANTE-CHAMBER. XV. THE ANTE-CHAMBER AND ITS WALLS, OPENED OUT; Also the Boss on the Granite Leaf. DETAILS OF KING'S CHAMBER. XVI. THE KING'S CHAMBER AND ITS ACCESSORIES. XVII. WALLS OF THE KING'S CHAMBER OPENED OUT. The Coffer Sunk portion of Walls, &c. HISTORY OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. XVIII. EGYPTOLOGICAL SIGNATURES OF EARLY EGYPTIAN KINGS; Also Doctors Grant's and Waller's Orders of Polish of the Great Pyramid's Granite Surfaces. XIX. TOMB OF KING CHEOPS, FAR OUTSIDE THE GREAT PYRAMID). PROPORTIONS AND GEOMETRICAL THEORY OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. XX. SIZE AND SHAPE OF GREAT PYRAMID, MEASURED WITHOUT. XXI. SIZE AND SHAPE OF GREAT PYRAMID, FROM TESTIMONY WITHIN. XXII. CONSTRUCTION HYPOTHESIS OF PASSAGE ANGLES AND CHAMBER EMPLACEMENTS IN GREAT PYRAMID. ASTRONOMY OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. XXIII. THE Antediluvian STARRY SKIES, AS SEEN ON THE GREAT PYRAMID PRINCIPLES OF OBSERVING, IF THEY COULD HAVE BEEN HUMANLY OBSERVED, AT OR ABOUT 3440 B.C. XXIV. THE STARRY SKIES AS SEEN AT THE GREAT PYRAMID AT ITS DATE OF FOUNDATION, 2170 B.C., and on its own principles of observing; viz., the old Drogon Pole-Star crossing the Meridian below the Pole, at the Passage-angle distance, and thereby emphasizing the one Zodiacal constellation then on the Meridian above the Pole; viz., Taurus and the Pleiades, with the Equi- noctial zero correspondent thereto. XXV. THE STARRY SKIES OF THE PRESENT TIME, AS SEEN AT THE GREAT PYRAMID ON ITS PECULIAR NORTHERN PASSAGE'S ANGLE PRINCIPLES OF OBSERVING, IN 1881-9 A.D., when the old Dragon Polar star is utterly removed from the Polar-point neighbourhood, and Taurus with the Pleiades are far from the Meridian on one side, and the Equinoctial Zero on the other. 1 THE THREE KEYS REQUIRED FOR OPENING THE GREAT PYRAMID. KEY THE FIRST. THE key of pure mathematics, as supplied chiefly in medieval and modern times, and mostly by the labours of private philosophers in their own studies, sometimes to absolute truth, sometimes to such close approaches thereto, as to be certain up to the last figure of any fraction yet arrived at; as, for one example much used and illustrated in the Great Pyramid,— ■, or the value of the circumference of a circle in terms of its diameter,= 26535 | 89793 | 23846 | 26433 + &c., &c., &c. 3.14159 KEY THE SECOND. The key of applied mathematics, or of astronomical and physical mensu- rations, as furnished by the latest and best approximations of all the first- class nations of the world; who have been working publicly for centuries, and have attained agreement, sometimes only in the second figure, sometimes in the third, fourth, or even lower figures, according to the difficulty in nature of the question concerned. As thus:- Polar diameter of the earth between 500,378,000 and 500,560,000 British inches. Mean equatorial diameter of the earth between 502,080,000 and 502,230,000 British inches. Ka - Mean density of the earth between 5.3 and 6.5; the two latest determina- tions by powerful government institutions. Mean distance of the earth from the sun between 91 and 93 millions of miles, British. Obliquity of the ecliptic in 1877 a.d. = 23° 27′ 17″-9 to 23° 27′ 19″·0. Length of the solar tropical year in mean solar days = 365-24222 to 365-24224. Precession of the equinoxes in years, = 25,816 to 25,870. KEY THE THIRD, The key of positive human history-past, present, and future-as sup- plied in some of its leading points and chief religious connections by Divine Revelation to certain chosen and inspired men of the Hebrew race, through ancient and medieval times; but now to be found, by all the world, collected in THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. PLATE II. Lat. North 32.6 31.6 36. 30.0- Lat. North. 30- 30 EQ Lat. North 120 90 60- 30- 60 903 Lat South W Longitude East from Greenwich 38 31 Rosetta Alexandria Racotis MEDITERRAN-2 -EAN SEA DESERT PYRAMID. LONGITUDE MERIDIANO THE GREAT 90 C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT Great Pyramid 0 ANCIENT MEMPHISO Ancient Heliopolis o Cairo 32 Longitude from Greenwich. 60' 30 30 60 90 Damietta. DESERT THE GREAT PYRAMID IN THE CENTRE, AND AT THE SAME TIME AT THE BORDER, OF THE SECTOR-SHAPED LAND OF LOWER EGYPT. 2 Ismaili Suez RED SEA 0% E 120 150 180 D Port Said. Pelusium LOWER EGYPT IN THE GEOGRAPHICAL CENTRE OF THE LAND SURFACE OF THE WHOLE WORLD: (on the Equal Surface Projection) Lat North. 32:0 36 310 36 -30.0 Lat. North. Lat North -90 F60 -30 EQ. 30 L60 -90 Lat. South A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN PLATE III + .62 59 10 NORTH 59.5- 590" 58 55 58 50 58 45 LATITUDE 5840 D. B 0.39 R 58 35 58:30 56 25 58 207 58 15 roun 06 الان 80 POUS 1000 AMPOO GOARM Third Pyramid 鳳​回​屋 ​LONGITUDE MERIDIAN OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. Sandy Plain formerly overflowed by the Nile Flood C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT Ancient Rubbish 000 0000000000 00 Cod" 1 1 000000 00000 000 0.0 Ug880000 000000 00000000 000000 Second Pyramid Mounds 000 10 00 800 000 OC 52 Great Pyran CHEOPS STOMP W 1188 0998 800949 Northern Causeway 1409 ၅၂ 8199 LONGITUDE MERIDIAN OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. East Tombs King Shafres Tomb Isolated group dr of Trees Southern Causeway 58 55 58 50 58 45 58 40 LATITUDE 58 35 58 30 58 25 SCALE 16000 NEARLY. MAP OF THE PYRAMIDS OF JEEZE H, ON THEIR FLAT TOPPED HILL OF ROCK, RISING JUST SOUTH OF THE LOW DELTA LAND OF LOWER EGYPT, AND WEST OF THE NORTHERN END OF THE SINGLE LONGITUDINAL VALLEY, BY WHICH THE NILE BRINGS ITS WATERS THROUGH 36 OF LATITUDE, FROM THE EQUATORIAL LAKES. 58 20° 91,89 +.62 NORTH A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN PLATE IV. ER THE GREAT PYRAMID. THE THIRD PYRAMID. ハック​! C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT GROUND PLAN OF THIS PYRAMID WHEN COMPLETE. SOUTH. THE SECOND PYRAMID. NORTH. THE FOURTH PYRAMID. GROUND PLAN OF THIS PYRAMID WHEN COMPLETE. SOUTH. NORTH. THE FIFTH PYRAMID. THE SIXTH PYRAMID. THE SEVENTH PYRAMID. THE EIGHTH PYRAMID. THE NINTH PYRAMID. ALL THE PYRAMIDS OF JEEZEH IN VERTICAL AND MERIDIAN SECTION, THEIR ANCIENT SIZE AND SHAPE BEING SHOWN BY THE DOTTED TRIANGLES OVER THEM. Scale sooo of Nature. A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN PLATE V. The never finished Pyramid lyramid of Zowyet el Arrian Pyramid of Reegeh of Aboo Roash. Lat.29'57 Lat 29 56 Lat 304 Abooser Middle Pyr. Abooser Lat 29 54 Lat 29.54 Saccara. Pyr. 2. Lat. 29'53 Saccara Pyr. 6. N brick Byrd of Dashoor Saccara Lat 2953 Pyr base of Mustabet Northern Stone Pyr el Faraoon. Lat. 29.53 of Dashoor. Lat 29 49 Northern Pyramid of Lisht Lat. 29 38. Pyramid of Illahoon Lat 29. 17. C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT G. Pyr Abooseir Small Pyr. Lat. 29. 54. Saccara Pyr. 7. Br3 or GP Saccara Pyr. 4. Lat. 29. 53 Saccara Pyr. 8. Small Pyramid of Dashoor Southern Stone Byr of Dashoor Lat 29.48 Southern Byramid of Lisht Lat. 29:37. Abooseir NPyr. Lat 29'54 Sbrick Pyr of Dashoor Saccara Pyr. 1. Lat: 29:53: Saccara Pyr 5. Saccara Pyr:9. The false Byr or Byr of Meydoon Lat. 29' 27' Pyramid of Howara. Lat. 29 18' Pyr1. of Biahmoo Pyr 2 of Biahmoo Lat. 29. 26' Lat. 29 26. ALL THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT, (other than those of Jeezeh.) beginning from the North and going to the South of the country. SCALE- 5000 OF NATURE. A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN PLATE VI C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN LEVELLED ROCK Ventila King's Chamber Queen's Chamber Subterranean Chamber High Nile Level in 1865 AD Low Nile Level in 1865 AD Ventilator Grand Gallery Grotto Entrance Passage 780 aconis when crossing Medieval Rubbish Mound LEVELLED leveren besten the face be ext ROCK High Nile Level in 2170 BC. Low Nile Level in 2170 B.C RUBBISH CHIPS OF ANCIENT BUILDERS SEA LEVEL in 1865 AD VERTICAL SECTION (From South to North looking West) OF THE GREAT PYRAMID OF JEEZEH AT WHAT TIME IT DEVOURS ITS OWN SHADOW. SCALE 2500 OF NATURE PLATE VII. WEST SIDE 1000 500 GROUND O TOGETHER WITH ITS 1000 C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT NORTH-SIDE 2000 Northern Ventilating Howard Vyses resultless hole. Channet 3000 1st Asco Passage Line of Grand Gallery. King's Chamber. SOUTH-SIDE. SCALE 2500 OF NATURE. PLAN OF THE GREAT PYRAMID, HORIZONTAL SECTIONAL AREA AT THE LEVEL OF THE KING'S CHAMBER. Southern Ventilating Channel. SCALE OF BRITISH INCHES. 5000 1000 GOOD 7000 8000 EAST SIDE 9000 A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN PLATE VIII இதயம் CRITO, ONE CRAMPE COUE Pro www. Hom EXAMPLE OF THE CASING STONES OF A PYRAMID, SUPER-POSED. ON THE RECT-ANGULAR MASONRY COURSES: FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY P.S. OF THE SUMMIT OF THE 2° PYR. D な ​המוטור REMNANT OF THE ORIGINAL CASING-STONE SURFACE OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. NEAR THE MIDDLE OF ITS NORTHERN FOOT. AS DISCOVERED BY THE EXCAVATIONS OF COL. HOWARD VYSE IN 1837. C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN PLATE IX. C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN King's Ant.Ch. Ch Queen's Ch m VERTICAL AXIS BASAL PLANE NATURAL GRAND GALLERY 1881. Pyn Inches This outline of Rock in the otherwise Solid Masonry, is inferred only. ROCK SUBTERRANEAN CHAMBER HORIZONTAL PASSAGE 1000 Horizontal Masonry courses, from the base upwards 50th GROTTO in Natural Rock THE WELL 500 THE WELL ממקמתמחה 60th DESCENDING ENTRANCE PASSAGE Whole floor length from beginning of Entrance Passage Floor to its ending in Subterranean Chamber (concluded from Howard Tyses notes uncertainly /= = 4446 P. inches. FIRST ASCENDING PASSAGE 1542 P. Inches SCALE OF 40th 36th 1000 30th 20th BRITISH INCHES. CHAMBER AND 985 Pinches ENTRANCE PASSAGE 628 357 985 AlMamoon's forced hole Granite Portcullis PASSAGE SYSTEM OF GREAT PYRAMID. enlarged from the Frontispiece. BASAL PLANE NATURAL ROCK levelled on top previous to building 2000 10th 1542-985-2527 or floor distance in P.Inches from North-beginning of Grand Gallery to North beginning of Entrance Passage. 3000 PLATE Y C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT A. RITCHIE & SON, EDINA NEnd of flooring of 1 of En Passage ام کو FRONT ELEVATION, Looking South. OF THE ANGLE STONES AND PRESENTLY DILAPIDATED ENTRANCE PASSAGE Floor distances from N. Wall of Gr Gallery in Brit.Inches MASONRY, OVER THE ONE AND SOLE ORIGINAL ENTRANCE PASSAGE INTO THE CREAT PYRAMID. From a "PHOTOGRAPH by P.S" 2000 00 2046 2100 2136 2238 100 320 surface of Gr. Pyramid Original outside Casing stone sloping 200 VERTICAL LONGITUDINAL SECTION. Looking West, OF THE UPPER, NORTH, END. OR BEGINNING OF THE ENTRANCE PASSAGE INTO GREAT PYRAMID. SCALE OF BRITISH INCHES. 2527 300 The present and also the original beginning of flooring of Entrance Passage 400 PLATE XI. C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN NORTHERN CEILING Vyse's hole NORTH WALL. W.Dixon's Channel Door Way Masonry courses of walls and ceiling are from an unfinished examination by Waynman Dixon. EAST WALL NICHE. 9 25 2 9 FLOOR ROUGH UNEVEN AND MORE LIKE THE SUBSTRATUM OF A TRUE G.BYRAMID CHAMBER FLOORING SOUTHERN CEILING SOUTH WALL: 10100 Hor Section, showing the original state of the Air channel, not worked through its Wall block. 20 real size. 50 Waynman Dixon's Channel THE SEVEN SIDES OF THE QUEEN'S CHAMBER. LAID OPEN ON THE PLANE OF THE EAST WALL. 0 WEST WALL- 100 200 Scale of British Inches. 300 PLATE XII. Floor line G. G. line Horizontal Passage to Queen's Chamber west-wall RAMP R C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT A WEST WALL J18. OF GRAND/GALLERY NORTH END Top of First Ascending Passage SECTION (vertical and longitudinal LOOKING WEST OF LOWER OR NORTHERN END OF GRAND GALLERY IN GR. PYRD AND ENLARGED PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE BROKEN OUT RAMP STONE SCALE OF BRIT INCHES. TO THE WELL, 100 THE ENTRANCE so called. A. RITCHIE & SON, EDINA PLATE XIII VERTICAL TRANSVERSE SECTION. LOOKING SOUTHWARD, FROM THE LOWER, OR NORTH END. OR BEGINNING OF GRAND GALLERY, GR. PYRO 100 C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT 50 VERTICAL TRANSVERSE SECTION, LOOKING NORTHWARD. FROM NEAR THE UPPER, OR SOUTH END. AND TERMINATION OF GRAND GALLERY, GR. PYR SCALE OF BRITISH INCHES FOR THE SECTIONAL PARTS ONLY. 1,00 A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN PLATE XIV Passage leading to Davison's hollow over King's Ch 100 END. SOUTHERN GALLERY WALL ४० UPPER. Ramp Floor OF GRAND EAST ITS THE GREAT STEP THE GREAT STEP Haar 36 inches high and Grand Gallery 36+25 inches long N. to South. 50 LOW PASSAGE. EAST WALL. C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DEL 0 L Passage Floor L L G G ANTE CHAMBER. EAST WALL. FLOOR VERTICAL MERIDIAN SECTION from Gr. Gallery through ANTE-CHAMBER to Kings Ch" Looking Eastward UNIVERSAL LIME STONE from N. to South ENDS here in floor ANTE CHAMBER FLOOR G L 100 G GRANITE IN from this Southwards. Scale of British Inches. LOW PASSAGE. ITS EAST WALL. G Passage Floor 200 HORIZONTAL SECTION 25 inches above floor or PLAN or FLOOR from GrGallery through ANTE-CHAMBER to Kings Ch Single line shading Lime stone. Crossed line shading Granite. Also L Lime stone and G Granite WALL EAST CHAMBER. KINGS King's Ch floor. A. RITCHIE & SON, EDINA 300 PLATE XV C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN" NORTH WALL L L L Entrance for Grand Gallery NORTH WALL In Sectional parts. single line shading-Lime stone crossed lines-Granite. L L L L Boss Gran Leaf L G L G G G G G CEILING G G EAST WALL FLOOR G G L G G L G SOUTH WALL SOUTH WALL THE BOSS ON THE GRANITE LEAF real size 100 G G G 50 11 WING G WEST G WALL G Scale of British Inches 0 L L Exca BROKEN HOLE Moder SIDES OF ANTE-CHAMBER, OPENED OUT ON PLANE OF EAST WALL, Lime stone blocks marked; others are Granite. Boss Gran Leaf 100 PLATE XVI 100 0 l C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT 50 KING'S CHAMBER 100 THE COFFER VERTICAL SECTION/Looking West) OF KING'S CHAMBER; ALSO OF ANTE-CHAMBER, SOUTH END OF GRAND GALLERY, AND VYSE'S HOLLOWS OF CONSTRUCTION, ABOVE KING'S CHAMBER. CROSSED LINES INDICATE GRANITE. ANTE-CHAMBER Scale of British Inches 400 200 300 500 SOUTHERN END OF 600 700 A. RITCHIE & SON, EDINA PLATE XVII C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN WEST-WALL. 100 Enlarged perspective view of base of Granite walls Five Inches below Floor plane. 50 COFFER. CEILING. NORTH-WALL. FLOOR. EAST-WALL. KING'S CHAMBER. ITS SIX SIDES OPENED OUT ON PLANE OF NORTH WALL. Length 112 132 P. Inches Breadth 206-166 P. Inches 1st height 230-389 P. Inches 2nd height 235.389 nearly. SCALE OF BRIT. INCHES, for Plan of King's Chamber 100 200 300 400 500 600 SOUTH-WALL. ELEVATION OF COFFER, Looking West. GROUND PLAN OF COFFER. 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 8- Number of Stones forming the Walls 2 24 20 22 27 100 2- 100 ALTES REICH DYNASTIE I MEMPHIS VOALA HDB. 10 d K D. NR یا MM ココ ​COD MENA Menes, Mon] wiet ASESKA np 18 ww ما AZA DYNASTIE V FRE MEMPHIS 711-3 A RITCHIE & SON, DEL & LITH ANTE-CHAMBER WALLS. «choko JA 4 13 4 II. ATUT [Athethis] Seine Tochter Jhr Sohn Sein Sohn K. Mutter Nofretkau Nofrenat Xaf Supfrullapeamat d یں لا Dynastie I-V. N91-21. 1. USESURKAP [Vercheres] DYNASTIE .III MEMPHIS ΙΔΙ AD XNUMU-XUPU 14 A D ADFA 20 D. 3EHURA (1) [Sephires] GRANITE-LEAF. Ante-ch D SNOFRU DYNASTIE IV MEMPHIS a 15 D KOPTRIKARA Naphercher KAKA HORAKAU VI. MENKAUHOR(Mencheres VIII. TATKARA Tancheras E 120元 ​S 10 A I. SOR [Serie) D 4. DY D III. XAPRA [Chephren, Chabrye C B II. XUPU [Suphi Cheops] E " D IV. RAENSESUR [Sire] TAT 8 ZA KING'S CHAMBER PLATE XVIII. J EDE GPS IV. MENKAURA Mencherer Mancherinor] 10 D THE LX. UNAS (Onnar] A a a CME WALLS. DR J. A. S. GRANT'S EXAMPLES OF ORDERS OF GRANITE WORKED-SURFACES in the interior of the Great Pyramid. NAME. CHEOPS. XUFU, OR SUPHIS.) THE FIRST EGYPTIAN KING WHO ADOPTED THE SYMBOL OF A PYRAMID AFTER HIS Photo lithographed from Dr Lepsius Konigs Buch der Alten dgypter 1858; by WH Daries. COFFER SIDE. King's ch PLATE XIX. SIDE WEST PLAN OF TOMB SIDE. NORTH 2 VERTICAL SECTION OF TOMB. (LOOKING WEST.) C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT FULFILLING THE DESCRIPTION OF HERODOTUS. as to the place where KING CHEOPS was buried; viz. "not in Gr. Pyramid "at all, but in a subterranean Island, "surrounded by the waters of the "NILE, which filter through the intervening rock to their level in the River at the time. B.C 2170 HIGH NILE LEVEL OBSERVED BY HOWARD VYSE IN 1837 AND LEVEL AT DATE OBSERVED BY HOWARD VYSE IN 1837 AND 1838 WATER LEVEL IN VYSES Sweet Water WELL IN 1837. A. D. LEVEL HIGH AN ANCIENT TOMB, 1000 ft.SSE of S.E. foot of Gr. Pyramid. NILE 1838 A.D A.D. LOW NILE HYDRAULIC A.D 1865 IN SHAFRES TOMB WELL NI WATER LEVEL up LEVEL OF SAND PLAIN TO THE EAST AND NORTH OF PYRAMID HILL IN 1865 A.D. Lowest part of the Subterranean Chamber beneath the Great Pyramid. REFERENCE DATA FOR SAID TOMB. VERTICAL DEPTH in Inches BELOW THE PLANE OF CREAT PYRAMID'S PAVEMENT BASE. Too 200- 300- 400- 600 009 700 800 900- 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400- 1500- 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN PLATE XX. 1610 17. 295-662 S. C. OT 7391-55 P. I. 5813 01 PI 232-520 S.C 314 9131 05 P. 1. or 365 242 S. C. DIRECT VERTICAL SECTION OF GREAT PYRAMID. EQUALITY OF BOUNDARIES. 11626 02 P. I. 5813 01 P. 15813-01 P. 1. 9131 05 P. 1.. 51.51.14.3 Great Pyramid's square base. and circle with radius-Pyr Vertheight EQUALITY OF AREAS NO I. 10303 30 P. I. C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT 9131 05 P. I. 19610 022 5813-01 PI 232 520 SC 347 515 S.C. or 8687 87 P. I. = 12913 26 P. I. or 516 530 S. C. DIAGONAL VERTICAL SECTION OF GREAT PYRAMID. 128. 8.45.7 TANGLES OF CASING STONES OF GREAT PYRAMID: As affected by its external slope and horizontal masonry courses. π 3 14159 26535+ &c. log. 0 49714 98726 + &c. -------------------- EQUALITY OF AREAS NO 2. 11626 02 P. I. 10303 30 P. I. 51.61.14-3 Area of square base of Great Pyramid=Area of Circle with GPyr height for radius= -area of a Circle whose diameter is given Area of square whose length of side is given 100 in the Ante-chamber. PI-PYRAMID INCHES. 100 in the Ante-chamber. S. C. SACRED CUBIT. Al 41.59.18.7 A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN PLATE XXI. In P.1. 5813-01 7391 55 P.In. P.L. 4565 52 E QUALITY OF AREAS N. 3. C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT 2906-50 . PIn 365 242 + &c. X 5813 01. Circle with Diameter Vert Height of G.Br PIn 4 9131 05 P.1. Direct Vertical Section of Gr. Pyr 11626 02-Ante chamber length x 100 Sun's distance from the earth in terms of the "breadth of the Earth from Pole to Pole. 21: TT 232 520+ &c. -- Vert height of GPyrd in sacred cubits. 365 242 + &c= = Base side length of Gr.Pyr in Sacred Cubils. 412 132- -King's ChLength in P. Inches. 5751 65. OUTSIDE GREAT PYRAMID. 5151 65. P. In 5151 65 EQUATION OF BOUNDARIES AND AREAS, CIRCLES AND SQUARES, INCHES INSIDE AND SACRED CUBITS 5151-65 Square with side computed by TT. A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN PLATE XXII D Fig. 1. Fig. 2. E H E H C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT I C K W V Z K X F G F G B GENERAL Angle BCS = PASSAGE ANGLE S Y OF GRT ADB= Direct, or right,Vertical Section of Great Byramid from North to south. PYRD EFGH Square and Circle of equal area to above. 26-18"-10" LENGTHS AND PLACES OF PASSAGES IN GREAT PYRD Add to Fig. 1, I C trisected &- CK bisected by horizontal lines, then B ZY parallel to CS. marks entrance passage. WT at an equal but opposite angle markes First Ascending Passage and the Grand Gallery. Angle BCP (where C P-side of equal area square) = 30; Latitude, approx?!" R A. RITCHIE & SON, EDIN PLATE XXIII. WEST HORIZON 6 R.A 8" R.A. NORTH HORIZON SIX HOUR CIRCLE C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DEL a DRACONIS 10" R.A. MERIDIAN BELOW POLE SOUTH POLE MERIDIAN ZENITH MERIDIAN BELOW EQUATOR 12H R.A. PRIME VERTICAL HORIZON 14" R.A A RITCHIE & SON, EDINA 16 R.A GROUND PLAN OF THE CIRCLES OF THE HEAVENS ABOVE THE SITE OF THE THEN UNBUILT GREAT PYRAMID:AT THE ANTEDILUVIAN DATE OF 3440 B. C. α DRACONIS ON MERIDIAN BELOW POLE, AT ENTRANCE PASSAGE ANGLE: PLEIADES AND VERNAL EQUINOX NOWHERE VISIBLE. EAST HORIZON PLATE XXIV. WEST HORIZON 1X HOUR CIRCLE PRIME VERTICAL ECLIPTIC NORTH HORIZON CELESTIAL EQUATOR C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DELT MERIDIAN BELOW POLE MERIDIAN SOUTH POLE ZENITH a DRACONIS MERIDIAN PLEIADES O R.A. BELOW EQUATOR HORIZON 2 R.A. SIRIUS OR SOTHIS 4 R.A. A RITCHIE & SON, EDINA GROUND PLAN OF THE CIRCLES OF THE HEAVENS ABOVE THE GREAT PYRAMID, AT ITS EPOCH OF FOUNDATION, AT MIDNIGHT OF AUTUMNAL EQUINOX 2170 B. C. a DRACONIS ON MERIDIAN, BELOW POLE, AT ENTRANCE PASSAGE ANGLE: AND PLEIADES ON MERIDIAN ABOVE POLE IN OR. A.; OR COINCIDENTLY WITH VERNAL EQUINOX. HORIZON EAST PLATE XXV HORIZON WEST SIX HOUR CIRCLE PRIME VERTICAL CELESTIAL EQUATOR (2) واللہ C. PIAZZI SMYTH, DEL NORTH a DRACONIS OH R.A. SOUTH HORIZON MERIDIAN POLE BELOW POLE ZENITH MERIDIAN BELOW EQUATOR 2H R.A. HORIZON PLEIADES IN THE AUTUMN OF 1881 A. D. 4" R.A. GROUND PLAN OF THE CIRCLES OF THE HEAVENS ABOVE THE PRESENT GREAT PYRAMID SIRIUS OR SOTHIS A. RITCHIE & SON, EDINA 6H R.A. * HORIZON EAST a DRACONIS ON MERIDIAN BELOW POLE, BUT AT SEVEN TIMES EN. PASS. ANCLE; PLEIADES FAR FROM MERIDIAN. EASTWARD; VERNAL EQUINOX FAR FROM MERIDIAN. WESTWARD; BUT THE DISTANCE OF THEIR MERIDIANS APART, INDICATING ON THE PRECESSIONAL DIAL THE AGE OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. { ᏢᎪᎡᎢ L. In GEOGRAPHY AND EXTERIOR OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. CHAPTERS I. TO V. • ! 7. A W! B CC IN THAT DAY SHALL THERE BE AN ALTAR UNTO THE LORD IN THE MIDST OF THE LAND OF EGYPT, AND A PILLAR AT THE BORDER THEREOF TO THE LORD. ،، AND IT SHALL BE FOR A SIGN AND A WITNESS UNTO THE LORD OF HOSTS IN THE LAND OF EGYPT."—ISAIAH XIX., 19, 20. - (C WHO HATH LAID THE MEASURES THEREOF, IF THOU KNOWEST? OR WKO HATH STRETCHED THE LINE UPON IT? (( WHEREUPON ARE THE FOUNDATIONS THEREOF FASTENED? OR WHO LAID THE CORNER STONE THEREOF; "C WHEN THE MORNING STARS SANG TOGETHER, AND ALL THE SONS OF GOD SHOUTED FOR JOY?"-JOB XXXVIII., 5, 6, 7. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. > Of the General Question of the Great Pyramid. Taccording HE Pyramids of Egypt have very safely, because according to the collected opinions of the leading antiquaries of all nations, been allowed to be the most ancient existing remains of the most ancient form and fashion of the architecture of that most anciently in- habited land they are found in. They constitute, exhibit, and illustrate, therefore, the nearest approach amongst the intellectual works of man to his doings immediately after the days of the Biblical Dispersion of mankind; and are, in fact, the only contemporary proofs that can now be claimed or referred to, for what went on in those ex- ceedingly carly times before the birth of written history. The number of these most remarkable monuments may amount to thirty-seven, or possibly thirty-eight; but that exact number is of little importance, for after the first seven or eight of the largest of them have been passed in review, built, too, as they are, with admirable skill in hewn stone, and appearing on the distant horizon like colossal crystals of mountain size, the others fail so rapidly in height, breadth, quality of material and lasting power, as to have crumbled into rounded, ruinous masses, and in some of the later cases to be hardly distinguishable from moderate-sized hillocks. They are, or were, all of them square-based Pyramids, with four triangular sloping flanks for sides, meeting to- wards the top in a point, over the centre of the base. They are, moreover, nearly solid constructions, whether B 2 4 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. built of stone or sun-dried brick; and are all situated on the Western, Lybian and more desert side of the Nile, occupying positions there, at intervals, along a line nearly seventy miles in length. This line begins near the Southern point of the Delta land of Lower, that is Northern, Egypt, within view, but across the river, of the modern city of Cairo, and extending thence Southward or towards Upper Egypt. But never reaching it; for there all the architecture is of the adorned Temple kind, and is of a much later date in Egyptian history, though still of far greater antiquity than any of the Classic remains of Greece or Rome. If, too, we should proceed, at this mere preliminary stage of our prospective and exclusive enquiry, to de- clare, that as to the Pyramids of Egypt in general, they were built to serve as lasting sepulchres for the great Egyptian dead, both Pharaohs and their relatives, we shall be supported by all the Egyptological science of modern times. And yet there is one amongst them which refuses to yield to this mode of explanation; and unfortunately it is the greatest, the best built, the best preserved of them all; one that for ages has acquired the name par excellence of the Great Pyramid, is spoken of more frequently than any other for and by itself alone, has attracted more fre- quent historic notice from travellers and writers of all times and all ages; has been considered also almost, if not absolutely quite, the earliest of this very early description of monument raised by man; and was held to be both the greatest and oldest of the seven wonders of the world in the days of the Greeks; while it is now the only one of them all which is still in existence on the surface of the earth. ! Locally this Pyramid is known as that of Jeezeh, Geezeh, or Ghizeh, because, standing on a low, flat-topped hill of that modern Arabic name, in the African desert position already described; where it has, however, several com- panions of later date and smaller size. Yet they are quite sufficient to discriminate all the travellers who visit them into two sharply divided classes; those who, with the world in general, are enthusiastic about "the Pyramids " (ie., in the plural) "of Egypt," with anything else thoroughly Egyptian also; and, on the other side, those who confine } CHAP. I.] 5 INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. LO their admiration and their interest to the one Great Pyramid, on account of what is there of anti-Egyptian character. For there have been, however it came about, such persons in all ages; though the idea has only begun to bear intellectual fruit in recent years, and has received at last a justification worthy of all Biblical scholars and Christian believers to occupy themselves with enquiring into. This new idea which solves with a hitherto unknown certainty the chief standing mystery of the civilized wold through all the ages, the said world owes to the late Mr. John Taylor of London, in a book published in A.D. 1859, and entitled "The Great Pyramid; why was it built? and who built it?" He had not visited the Pyramid himself, but had been for thirty years pre- viously collecting and comparing all the published accounts, and specially all the better-certified mensurations (for some were certainly poor indeed) of those who had been there; and while so engaged, and quite spontaneously (as he described to me by letter), the new theory opened out before him. Though mainly a rigid induction from tangible facts of scientific bearing and character, Mr. Taylor's result was undoubtedly assisted by means of the mental and spiritual point of view from whence he commenced his researches; and which is, in the main, simply this: That whereas other writers have generally esteemed that a certain grand but unknown existency, whom they all allow, in their historical enquiries, did direct the building of the one Great Pyramid (and to whom the Egyptians in their carly traditions and for ages afterwards gave an immoral and even abominable character) must, therefore, have been very bad indeed-so that the world at large, from that time to this, has ever been fond of treading on and insult- ing that dead lion whom they really knew nothing of—he, Mr. John Taylor, seeing in every characteristic mention of them in the Bible, how religiously bad the idol-inventing Egyptians themselves were, was led to conclude that the unknown leader and Architect whom they hated, and could never sufficiently abuse, might perhaps have been pre-eminently good; or was, at all events, of a purer religious faith than that of the Mizraite sons of Ham. P 0 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Then, remembering, with mutatis mutandis what Christ himself says respecting the suspicion to be attached, when all the world speaks well of any one, Mr. Taylor followed up this idea by what the Old Testament does record touch- ing the most vital and distinguishing part of the Israel- itish religion; and which is therein described, some centuries after the building of the Great Pyramid, as notoriously an "abomination to the Egyptians :" and combining this with certain unmistakable and undisputed, by any one, his- torical facts, he successfully deduced sound and Christian reasons for believing that the director of the building, and perhaps his immediate assistants who controlled the my- riads of native builders at the Great Pyramid, were by no means Egyptians, but strangers of the chosen race, sons of Shem, and in the line of, though preceding, Abraham; so early, indeed, as to be closer to Noah than to Abraham. Men, at all events, who had been enabled by Divine favour to appreciate the appointed idea, as to the absolute ne- cessity of a sacrifice and atonement for the sins of man by the blood and free-offering of a Divine Mediator, as in the most earnest and Evangelical form of Christianity. This very crucial idea of our present faith was never- theless of an antiquity coeval with the contest between Cain and Abel, and had descended through the Flood to certain predestined families of mankind; but yet was an idea which no one of Egyptian born would ever contem- plate with a moment's patience. For every ancient Egypt- ian, from first to last, and every Pharaoh of them more especially, just as with the Ninevites and Babylonians generally, was an unmitigated Cainite in thought, act, and feeling to the very backbone; confident of, and professing nothing so much, or so constantly, as his own perfect right- cousness and absolute freedom by his own innate purity, and by his own invariable, complete, and unswerving rectitude throughout his whole life from every kind of sin, large or small, against God or man. G On this general ground it was that Mr. Taylor took his stand; and, after disobeying the world's long-formed public opinion of too passively obedient accord with profane Egyptian tradition, and after thereby also setting at naught some of the most time-honoured prejudices of CHAP. I.] 7 INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. modern Egyptological scholars, so far as to give a full, fair and impartial examination to the whole case from the be- ginning, announced that he had discovered in some of the arrangements and measures of the Great Pyramid-when duly corrected for injuries and dilapidations of intervening time-certain scientific results, which speak of neither Egyptian nor Babylonian, and much less of Greek or Roman learning, but of something much more than, as well as quite different from, any ordinary human ways of those several contemporary times. For, besides coming forth suddenly in the primeval history of its own remote day, without any preliminary period of childhood, or known ages of evolution and pre- paration—the actual facts of the Great Pyramid, in the shape of builded proofs of an exact numerical knowledge of the grander cosmical phenomena of both earth and heavens-not only rise above, and far above, the extremely limited and almost infantine knowledge of science humanly attained to by any of the Gentile nations of 4000, 3000, 2000, nay only 300 years ago; but they are also, in whatever of the great physical secrets of nature they chiefly apply to, essentially above the best knowledge of philosophers in our own time as well. This is indeed a startling assertion to be put forth about an ancient stone monument. Never ventured, too, by any one, let it be duly borne in mind, for the "Pyramids of Egypt" in the plural; but only for the one great and strange Pyramid in Egypt; and which, though standing there, is yet not at all of, or according to, native ideas, whether in science or religion, as they were graven in the hieroglyphics of Egypt, and as she herself has described them in her own history. Yet the assertion admits of the completest and most positive refutation, if at all as untrue for the Great Pyramid as it undoubtedly is for any other ancient building whatever. For the exact science of the present day, compared with that of only a hundred years ago, is a marvel of development; and is capable of giving out no uncertain sound, both in asserting itself, and stating not only the fact, but the order and time of the invention of all the practical means humanly necessary to the minutest steps of each separate discovery yet made. 00 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Much more then can this modern science of the mathe- matical kind speak with positiveness, when comparing its own presently extended knowledge against the little that was known to man, by his own efforts and by his then school methods, in those early epochs before accurate and numerical physical science had begun, or could have been begun, to be seriously cultivated at all. That is, in the truly primeval day when men were few on the earth, and yet the Great Pyramid was built, finished, sealed up, and left as we see it now, modern dilapidations only excepted, in the midst of an unbelieving world, to guard its own secret through the ages, and serve at last its intended purpose, whatever that was to be, in the latter days of mankind. Let us proceed, then, to examine all well known Great Pyramid facts by the light of modern science, so far as that can be brought to bear; keeping our eyes duly open all the time to the necessity of guarding, on one side against accidental coincidences in favour of this theory of the Great Pyramid; and on the other, to the possi- bility of any intentional features really detected there being common to any of the other Pyramids as well. Before the many difficulties of such an enquiry, and the practical skill required, I should myself have been very loath to pronounce any positive conclusions on reading alone any number of so-called book authorities. But having actually visited the Pyramid field in Egypt; en- camped there in 1864 and 1865 for several months, making daily use of a variety of scientific measuring apparatus; and since then having spent more than twenty years in working out, and fighting for, every step of the enquiry, I do humbly trust that, by the grace of God, I may not only have arrived at many true results, but may be able to show that the steps of the work and the progress of the proof are much easier than might have been antici- pated to all who are in heart inclined to follow, and desire to make securely their own. CHAP. II.] GEOMETRICAL PROPORTIONS. 9 CHAPTER II. GEOMETRICAL PROPORTIONS. Of the Outer Surfaces of the Great Pyramid. John Taylor's First Discovery. MR R. TAYLOR'S first discovered theorem with regard to the Great Pyramid's shape, as derived from modern measures and calculations of it, is, that that Pyramid's height, in the original condition of the monu- ment, when each one of its four sloping triangular sides was made into a perfect plane by means of the polished outer, sloping surface of the bevelled casing stones (see Plates VIII. and XX.), and when these sides, being continued up to their mutual intersections, terminated at, and formed the summit in, a point,-that its central, vertical height then was, to twice the breadth of its square base, as nearly as can be expressed by good monumental work, as the diameter to the circumference of a circle; i.e., as 1: 3.14159, etc. This last number being no other than the π, or key the "first," of our preliminary pages of contents and ex- planations. Or, again, as shown by Mr. St. John Day, the area of the Great Pyramid's right section (i.e., a vertical, central section parallel to one of the sides of the horizontal base) is to the area of the base, as 1 to the same 3.14159, etc. And again, as the same fact admits of being differently expressed, the vertical height of the Great Pyramid is the radius of a theoretical circle, the length of whose curved circumference is equal to the sum of the lengths of the 10 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. four straight sides of the actual and practical square base of the whole monument. Now this is neither more nor less than a practical solution of that celebrated problem of the long subsequent mcdiæval and modern ages of Europe, " the squaring of the circle." For it was so accomplished by the ancient architect who designed the Great Pyramid, when,-over and above deciding that the building was to be a square- based Pyramid,-with, of course, all the necessary mathe- matical innate relations which every square-based Pyramid must have,—he also ordained that its height (which other- wise might have been anything) was to bear such a particular proportion to its breadth of base, as should bring out the nearest practical value of the number above mentioned. Which said quantity not one out of all the other thirty measured Pyramids in Egypt has been proved to be endowed with even approximately. If, therefore, the T quantity with its resulting shape is really found built into the Great Pyramid with exactness, as well as magnitude, characterizing and utilizing the whole of that vast surface, it not only discriminates that building at once from all the other Pyramids of Egypt, whatever their absolute size may be ; but proves that such a distinguishing feature for the wise of latter days, must have been the result either of some most marvellous acci- dent, or of some deep wisdom and settled determined pur- pose: in this case, too, not less than 3000 years in advance of the learned world of the following times. And that wisdom of the Great Pyramid's founder, was apparently working in a peculiar confidence of scientific knowledge and historical trust; not for its contemporaries, to whom it explained nothing and showed very little, but for a most distant posterity. Knowing well apparently that a fundamental mathematical truth like π would in- fallibly come to be understood both in and by itself alone, and be appreciated in the fact without any written inscrip- tion, in that then distant day when knowledge should be multiplied, and books abound, and mathematics should be at last as extensively and successfully cultivated amongst mankind, even as they are now, in an æra of School Boards as well as Universities. - CHAP. II.] GEOMETRICAL PROPORTIONS. 11 π. A most just conclusion, too; for experience has shown that neither mathematics nor mechanics, nor high civiliza- tion, can progress in any country in modern times without knowing well the several earlier figures in the numerical and calculational quantity of . In testimony whereof I may mention, that in Dr. Olinthus Gregory's "Mathematics. for Practical Men," third edition thereof by H. Law, C.E., at page 64 of Appendix, there is a Table 5 of “Useful Factors in Calculation," consisting in each case of the few first figures of that invaluable, but theoretically intermin- able, number or proportion T, = 3.14159, etc., in no less than fifty-four different mathematical forms. * Nor is this care to keep the workmen straight, in any degree superfluous, even in the present educated day; for notwithstanding all the power which examining boards have to secure that one only view in abstract science shall be admitted as truth,-yet the perverse sharpness of isolated individuals in after life will insist on breaking out through all bounds on this value of π question, both in England and America up to and including the passing hour, to an extent that is almost incredible. Thus in Nos. 6 and 7, vol. v., of "The Bizarre, Notes and Queries," for June and July, 1888, published at Manchester, N. H., United States of America, a publication of small size, but considerable weight, because of eminent seriousness and ability, working, too, under the double motto, 1st from Plato: "God perpetually geometrizes; and 2nd from Confucius: "Who offends against heaven has none to whom he can pray," in the above numbers of the above-named serial, let me repeat, will be found an admirably condensed article on "Cyclometry, Quadrature, Rectification," consisting of thirty-three pages of short, pithy notes on chiefly very modern works published both in London and America, bringing out by their own sup- posed absolute mathematics various impossible values for π, stretching anywhere on either side of the correct 3·14159, ctc.,—given to 707 decimal places, not one of which can be altered with impunity,-up to so large a variance on one side as to 3.23, and on the other side as 3·125. "" Nearly one hundred such authors are alluded to; and so vigorously, so self-sacrificingly have some of them preached 12 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. their misleading lights that of one it is reported that his publications, amounting to fourteen, and totalizing 1988 pages, are profusely illustrated with plates, diagrams, extracts and examples. And as I once had a chance opportunity of hearing him speak at a public meeting in Liverpool, he was a man of power on the platform above the average of men, on all subjects except that one on which he was most anxious to lead them, viz., his own value of π. Inquiry into the Data. Although John Taylor accomplished the demonstration of π, the true π, being in the Great Pyramid, chiefly by reference to its height and base breadth, these are exceedingly difficult to be now obtained for the primitive and uninjured building with accuracy, by reason of its present ruined state; many feet of height being knocked entirely away, while the base- sides below are covered by such hills of rubbish as would require governments and their armies to clear, rather than a solitary scientist or two. It is better, therefore, to deter- mine this question, which is after all one of the shape, rather than the absolute size, of such a purely mathematical figure as a Pyramid, by that kind of measure which refers to shape alone, and does not depend on, or trouble with, size measures in any direction, nor require them to be expressed in terms of any one particular linear standard. Such purely shape measure is that of angle, and may be conveniently taken thus; viz., for a π-shaped, square-based Pyramid, at what angle ought each of its four sides to rise from the level, in order to meet in a point at the top, vertically over the centre of the base, and give the propor- tion of vertical height to twice the base-side breadth, the same as John Taylor believed he had found :— The answer is, theoretically, see Plate XX., 51° 51′ 14″3, to much greater accuracy than need ever be expected to be obtained in practically examining masons' work. But what answer does the ancient Great Pyramid give itself? At first it seems to resist the very notion of any angular measuring instrument being applied to it; for to the CHAP. II.] 13 GEOMETRICAL PROPORTIONS. sight of anyone close by, it is not only rough on the surface, but built in horizontal sheets or courses of rectan- gular limestone blocks, their outer, and now broken off, edges necessarily forming in these days a sort of rude steps up the sloping sides. But these spurious and merely adventitious semblance of steps have only come to light from the medieval dilapidations and forcible removal of the Pyramid's once polished white casing (with its outward surface bevelled smoothly to the general slope, see Plate VIII.), which had stood for more than 3000 years, and had in its day given to the structure almost mathematical truth and perfection. This state of things was described by Greek, Roman and early Arabian writers, and it existed until the Caliphs of Egypt, about the year 1000 A.D., profiting by the effects of a severe, and, for Egypt, very unusual, tirthquake, recorded to have happened in 908 A.D., began methodically to strip off the polished and outwardly bevelled casing- stone blocks; built two bridges to convey them more easily to the river, after chipping off the prismoidal angles and edges, and then employed them in building mosques and palaces; for the lining of the great "Joseph" well, and for other public structures which still adorn their favourite city of El Kahireh, or the Victorious-the Cairo of vulgar English. Seeing then before their very eyes the building of the Great Pyramid oppressed with heaps of rubbish below, and rough exceedingly where it towers above them, various hasty travellers of modern days, totally unacquainted with the mouldering effects of such a hugely protracted period of time as this monument has passed through, too lightly jump to the conclusion that it must always have been very much as they see it now, or without any minute exactitude about it. Yet if they are men of parts and education they ought to have read the accounts of Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, and some of the early Arabian authors, who simply but truth- fully described what they saw when the casing was still com- plete, eminently smooth, and by all men called beautiful. While for a thorough understanding of the present con- dition of things, they should have read at least the following recent authors :- K 14 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Professor John Greaves, the Oxford Astronomer in 1638, taken up almost entirely with applications of refined measurement to the Great Pyramid. The magnificent French, or Napoleon Buonaparte Expedition's work in 1799. The princely Colonel Howard Vyse, in 1837, whose three fine volumes are devoted almost entirely to Pyramids, and chiefly to the Great one. While in the second volume, besides his own measures and his history of work, he gives either extracts from, or abstracts made with admirable fairness of, no less than seventy-one European and thirty-two Arabian authors on some one or other, or all, the Pyramids of Egypt. And then that brilliant group of authors should not be closed without studying the learned, experienced and amiable Sir Gardner Wilkinson, from 1810 to 1858. For though his chief subject was the domestic life of the Egyptians, yet he has both described and measured most of the Pyramids, and is respectable in whatever he touches. After his epoch is passed, there is no considerable work on the Great Pyramid until my own of 1867, entitled "Life and Work at the Great Pyramid," three volumes of descriptions and measures. This was followed seventeen years after by Mr. W. M. Flinders Petrie's work of 1884, wherein measures, taken with utmost skill, abound; and the letterpress being written with intense antagonism to my own views and conclusions in the present book's earlier editions, have given to his measures a power, often quite involuntarily to himself, of confirmation, when they agree, greatly above what might have belonged to any other author's work of less anti-pathic turn. Colonel Howard Vyse's Cusing-stones. John Taylor, at all events, had read the great book of Pyramid exploration in his day, Colonel Howard Vyse's; and had marked well, both how he succeeded, after im- mense labour with hundreds of workmen, in digging down through the hills of covering rubbish at the northern foot CHAP. II.] 15 GEOMETRICAL PROPORTIONS. of the Great Pyramid, and finding there, see Plate VIII., and measuring, probably the two last of the northern side's bevelled casing-stone blocks, or what had formed the very beginning of the northern upward-sloping side of the building; where they were still in situ, and adhering closely by their original cement to the pavement base of the building. And then how he failed, though he covered them up with a mound of rubbish, pending an applica- tion to remove them to the British Museum; how he failed to save them, after he had left Egypt, from the hammers of Mahommedan prowlers by night. At least, so it was reported to, and believed by, him. John Taylor's Proposition Supported by Howard Vyse's Casing-stone Angle. But while these casing-stones were before him, what did the colonel find the angle of rise they attributed to a side of the Great Pyramid? That was the question John Taylor demanded of the colonel's book. He demanded it also with so much the more eagerness, and confident trust, because the blocks had been described as exhibiting such matchless workmanship, almost as correct and true "as that of modern optical instrument makers," but performed in this instance on masses of dense white compact limestone, almost like marble; five feet high, eight feet broad, twelve feet long; with the finest of joints between them, said to be "no thicker, even including a film of white cement" (of sulphate, not carbonate, of lime like our ordinary mortar), "than silver paper." Now the angle of the inclined or bevelled outer surface, measured very carefully for the colonel by Mr. Brettell, civil engineer, came out on the first occasion 51° 50″ as measured by a clinometer direct; and on a second occa- sion being computed from linear measures of their sides, made for him by another engineer, came out 51° 52′ 15". And putting these two together, what is not the mean of them, but the closest practical approach that any one could expect to make, to exactly John Taylor's theoretic angle of 51° 51′ 14"-3 for a truly π shaped Pyramid. 16 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Wherefore this result in so far shows that the Great Pyramid does represent, as closely as the very best modern measures can be trusted, the true practical value of π; a quantity which men in general, and all human science too, did not begin to trouble themselves about until long, long ages, languages and nations had passed away after the building of the Great Pyramid; and after the sealing up, too, of the grand primeval and prehistoric monument of an age which was the patriarchal age of the earth according to Scripture. Subsequent Confirmations of the above Grand Datum. Hence the first stage of our trial terminates itself with as eminent a confirmation as the case can possibly admit of, touching the truth of John Taylor's theory, pro- position, or statement, as to the shape voluntarily and determinedly given by the ancient architect to the Great Pyramid; i.e., so far as one relatively small part of its surface may be considered sufficient; and after it had been supposed that even that small part had been so completely destroyed subsequently to its measurement, that it could not be had up again in repeated witness, nor subjected to new measures. But hereupon begins the second stage of our enquiry, wherein I can add the absolute weight of direct personal examination at the place, carried on, too, for a longer time than most of my predecessors had at their command. I was not indeed so fortunate as Colonel Howard Vyse in finding anything like such large entire unmoved and well preserved casing-stones as he did; but was enabled to prove, by quasi geological and mineralogical examination of specimens, that the enormous rubbish mounds now formed on each of the four base-sides of the Great Pyramid consist mainly of innumerable fragments of the old casing- stones. Those very casing-stones which casual travellers refuse to believe did ever exist; yet here are their chipped off fragments, distinguishable both by the superior quality of their component stone, and their prepared angle of slope, always conformable, within narrow limits, to the ! CHAP. II.] GEOMETRICAL PROPORTIONS. 17 theory's requirement. And a number of these almost "vocal" specimens were deposited by me, on my return from Egypt, in the Museum of the Royal Society, Edin- burgh; so that if any further objectors appeared there "the very stones themselves should cry out against them." Nor was the proving of the shape of the gigantic monu- ment left to small fragments alone, however numerous; for I examined the whole face of each side in perspec- tive, and finding that the middle of each face was more worn by weather, since it was denuded of its casing pro- tection by Caliph Al Mamoun, than the four corner lines of the Pyramid, where the blocks were evidently of the hard Mokattam limestone, I turned my attention to those corner or “arris" lines as seen both from the top, and after- wards from the bottom, of the Great Pyramid, with a powerful astronomical circle and telescope which I had taken there; and obtained for the angular rise of these "arris" lines the angle of 41° 59′ 45"+. And that gives by computation (according to the necessary innate relations of the parts of a square-based pyramid) for the side slope of this great one, the angle of 51° 51' and some seconds; or without any doubt affording the proof through calculation from something apparently very different, of the same. identical angle of 51° 50' to 51° 52′ which Howard Vyse did observe on the foot of the Pyramid directly; and the one which, if it is there, necessarily makes the Great Pyramid, in and by its whole figure express the near value of that most scientific desideratum π. Nor has this enlarged proving of the matter stopped with me. For other explorers have now been induced to search the rubbish mounds about the Great Pyramid, and have seldom left without carrying off some fragment, wherein two evidently worked ancient sides met, not at a right angle, but at the angle of either 51° 51'+ or 128° 9'; one being the angle at the foot, the other at the head of every casing-stone of a π pyramid, if built, as the Great Pyramid is, in accurately horizontal courses of masonry. I learn, too, from a recent American book of travel, that my former Arab assistant at measuring the Great Pyramid, C 18 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Alee Dobree, or Gabri, by name, and who was very quick in seizing the idea of angle expressed in numerical amount when I first explained it to him in 1865,-that he is now doing quite a trade, and most unexceptionably with the travellers who visit the monument, by selling to them casing-stone fragments "with the angle;" which fragments he is able, by the gift of a sharp and appreciating eye, to pick out of the very same hills of rubbish which they walk carelessly over. Yet even all these facts in that way have been far transcended by my friend, Mr. Waynman Dixon, C.E.; who, taking advantage of an extensive cutting into the Great Pyramid rubbish mounds by the Egyptian govern- ment, merely for brute material wherewith to make the road by which the Empress of France visited the monu- ment in 1869, discovered almost a whole casing-stone. Not a very large one indeed, and in a loose condition also, but with portions more or less of all its six original worked sides; or a completer example than is known at the present moment to exist anywhere else all the world over. This most unique specimen Mr. Waynman Dixon graciously sent from Egypt as a present to me, and I have deposited it under a glass case in the official residence of the Astronomer Royal for Scotland. There it has been closely measured, and its ascending angle found to be certainly between 51° 53′ 15" and 51° 49′ 55"; or as close as could be expected, from the block's moderate size and fractured condition, to that typical π angle of 51° 51′ 14″, about which all the fragments of Great Pyramid casing- stones are found to collect. But none of the casing-stones of the other Pyramids. of Egypt collect about or aim at that angle. They were sometimes worked with admirable hand-skill: so that Colonel Howard Vyse finds three successive Pyramids built to the same casing-stone angle within one minute of each other; but at an absolute difference of three-quarters of a degre from, or opposed to, the π angle. Indeed, we may best judge of the merit of the one Great Pyramid in this respect by looking over the following table pre- pared from the Colonel's trusty volumes. ¿ CHAP. II.] 19 GEOMETRICAL PROPORTIONS. Casing-stone Angles of all the Best Preserved Egyptian Pyramids. Names of Pyramids. Great Pyramid of Jeezeh Second Pyramid of Jeezeh Third Pyramid of Jeezeh Fourth Pyramid of Jeezeh Fifth Pyramid of Jeezeh Sixth Pyramid of Jeezeh Seventh Pyramid of Jeezeh. Eighth Pyramid of Jeezeh Ninth Pyramid of Jeezeh North Pyramid of Abooseir Great Pyramid Saccara in steps with rise North Brick Pyramid of Dashoor · • North Stone Pyramid of Dashoor. South Stone Pyramid of Dashoor, lower and upper parts • Small Pyramid of Dashoor • South Brick Pyramid of Dashoor • Pyramid of Meydoon in steps rising at Pyramid of Biahmoo • Angle Observed. 50' 51° 51' 52' 52° 20' 51° 0' In steps 52° 15' In steps 52° 10' 52° 10' 52° 10' 51° 35' 51° 42' 73° 30' 51° 20' 43° 30' 54° 15' 42° 59' 50° 12' 57° 20' 74° 10' 63° 30' J But now comes the most extraordinary part of the story in modern times, and one which with its remarkable con- firmations we cannot refuse to admit—because it appears in Mr. Flinders Petrie's book, which was to have upset every thing here deduced. For it seems that, disregard- ing the rumour, which even Colonel Howard Vyse himself believed, of the midnight destruction of his grand casing- stones at the Great Pyramid, in or about 1837, Mr. Flinders Petrie dug down upon their historic site (in 1882) and found them still existing and admirably preserved by the rubbish upon them. Of course he then proceeded to test their angle of rise, and found it to be, with remarkable certainty, 51° 52′+2'; or pointing once more as accurately as the component blocks of any monument could be expected to do, towards John Taylor's true and genuine Pyramidian π angle. C 2 20 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. 1 The objectors to that theory, as being too high and scientific for primitive times, can now therefore only take refuge in declaring that this peculiar angle, which is thus positively found to prevail at the Great Pyramid, and to have been perseveringly carried over whole acres of worked stone surface, was the result of an accident. But were the men who designed and directed the building of the Great Pyramid the sort of men who are prone to stumble and have their whole work characterised by accidents? Hear what Mr. Flinders Petrie has to say of those grand casing- stones as made by them, and examined after an existence of 4000 years by the science of modern times :-"Several measures were taken of the thickness of the joints of the casing-stones. The Eastern joint on the Northern casing- stones is on the top 0·020,0.002,0.045 (of an inch only) wide; and on the face, 0·012, 0·022, 0·013, and 0·014 (of an inch) wide. The next joint is on the face, 0·011 and 0·014 wide. Hence the mean thickness of the joints there is 0·020 (of an inch); and the mean variation of the cutting of the stone from a straight line, and from a true square, is but 0·01 (of an inch) in a length of 75 inches up the face, an amount of accuracy equal to most modern opticians' straight edges of such a length. These joints, with an area of some 35 square feet each, were not only worked as finely as this, but cemented throughout. Though the stones were brought as close as of an inch, or, in fact, into contact, and the mean opening of the joint was but of an inch, yet the builders managed to fill the joint with cement, despite the great area of it, and the weight of the stone to be moved —some sixteen tons. To merely place such stones in exact contact at the sides would be careful work; but to do so with cement in the joints seems almost impossible." Bo And yet it was done in this, the earliest of known stone buildings; so that, in fact, even for mere workmanship, and overlooking for the time their unique testimony to the π angle, there are nowhere and never were anywhere else, known to man, such exemplary casing-stones as those of the Great Pyramid (so superbly large, and so marvellously accurate) erected anywhere else, whether in Egypt, or in any other land all the world over. While for any one to contrast them, the earliest positively known examples, with CHAP. II.] 21 GEOMETRICAL PROPORTIONS. the puny, perishing casing-stones, or, in some instances, mere sun-dried bricks, of any of the subsequent Egyptian Pyramids, miserably executed at last, must in so far over- throw the theories of all the modern advocates of progres- sive development, as necessarily evolving higher capacities in man, and more perfect results, with time alone to aid him; in contradistinction to a primal Divine creation of man in the image of God, however low he may have fallen since. But we shall find further illustrations on this point as we proceed. # 22 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. CHAPTER III. STANDARD OF LENGTH EMPLOYED IN LAYING OUT THE GREAT PYRAMID. Base-side length, so laid out. SH HAPE having been settled for the Great Pyramid by the π angle, the next enquiry should be as to its size; and if we can obtain only one of these two line measures, viz. either vertical height, or base-side length, the π angle will give the other. Now of these two linear factors, base-side length is the one most worthy of direct and careful study, because both of its terminations may be enquired and examined into on the ground; while of the height, though we may obtain the true plane to start from below, there is only at the top a reference which must be now several feet short of what it once was; and that former condition is all that concerns us to arrive at ultimately. To the base-side length, therefore, of the Great Pyramid let us address ourselves. The reports of all travellers since the dark ages and previous to the visitation of the French Academy at the end of the last century, are singularly erroneous and almost always too small. This arises partly from the building being in fact smaller in their time than in ancient days, by the thickness of the casing stripped off it by Caliph Al- Mamoon as detailed in the last chapter; and partly by the depth to which the lower and necessarily larger parts of the Pyramid were hidden by heaps of rubbish, and mounds of sand. So that all those persons who were content with measuring just so much of the building as CHAP. III.] 23 STANDARD OF LENGTH. protruded above the rubbish level were evidently, where an angular Pyramid was concerned, measuring a smaller part of the building; or in so far, and to them, a positively smaller structure than that which the architect originally founded on the rock below. Admirably, therefore, did the French philosophers of 1799 proceed, when they perseveringly dug down through those hills of adventitious rubbish in search of the original foundations of the old corners of the monument, and what they there found has been thus described by themselves. (6 'They recognized perfectly the esplanade upon which the Great Pyramid had been originally established; and discovered happily, at the North East angle, a large hollow socket (encastrement) worked in the rock, cut rectangularly and uninjured, where the casing-stone (of that one basal angle) had been placed. It is an irregular square, which is 118 British inches broad in one direction, 137.8 British inches in another, and 7-9 of the same inches deep" all over its floor. The French savants" next made the same researches at the North West angle, and there also discovered a hollow socket (encastrement) similar to the former; the two were on the same level. It was between the two exterior points of these hollows, and with much care and precaution, that they measured the base-side length. They found it 916344 British inches. The encastrement so brought to light in the basal rock of the hill at the Great Pyramid base's North East angie is duly figured in plan among the large French plates; and, as I have since verified at the place, has the inner corner (see Plate VII.) curiously unfinished. Though, by that fact, practically indicating the well shaped, fully carved, rectangular outer corner of the socket to be the true starting point for measure of base-side length; and because, also, it was originally the terminal point of the Pyramid's substance at that lower angle or foot. From the outer corner, therefore, of the North East, to the outer corner of the North West, encastrements of their happy discovery it was, that the skilful French surveyors ex- tended their measuring bars, and with the result given above. G 24 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. When Colonel Howard Vyse appeared on the scene nearly forty years subsequently to the French Academicians; and, with far more leisure for making minutely accurate researches, measured, it is supposed, the same Northern and socket-defined side of the Great Pyramid's base, and announced it to be 9168 British inches; or within 5 inches of the French measure,-all the literary world at home. believed that the true base-side length of the Great Pyramid had been found at last, as lying between those two measures; and equally for the other three unmeasured sides, as for the Northern, and only measured, one of an assumed perfectly square base. No wonder, therefore, that John Taylor lived and died in the belief that the Great Pyramid's base-side length was between 9163 and 9168 British inches, though it is really far from it. But he was quite correct in attaching prime weight to the sockets, or encastrements, squared hollows cut into the solid, living foundational rock, bear- ing the whole monument; and considered them as being the ancient architect's intended fiducial points for de- fining the true size of the Northern side of the base of his grand work of all the ages of civilised man upon earth. Moreover, John Taylor's remarkable iden- tification of the verse in Job xxxviii., 6 (when pre- cisionised by the marginal translation in our Bibles), as describing, under the name of the creation of the earth, the beginning of a building like the Great Pyramid, if not the Great Pyramid itself, with its sockets made to sink, or its fiducial corner foundations cut into the rock, was so generally accepted as a Biblical reference to the Great Pyramid-that the exactness of the measures accom- panying their discovery was equally taken as correct, exact, and likely to be satisfactory for ever; and it was in that comfortable condition of the world's knowledge that I went out to Egypt in 1864. It had not been my purpose to attempt any excavations nor any base-side measures with my insufficient purse. But before I left, came two Scottish engineers, Messrs. Aiton and Inglis, with a special permit from the Egyptian government to allow them to excavate with the assistance of the Arabs around. They began, therefore, immediately CHAP. III.] 25 STANDARD OF LENGTH. to work over the site of the sockets, and did, before many days, uncover all four of them; that being probably the first occasion for many centuries that all four sockets had simultaneously been seen by any one. In every case said sockets were empty, and no trace left of the grand corner stone which once fitted into each of them; indeed, the sockets looked a strangely great dist- ance from any of the rough-upstanding Pyramid masonry. But that appearance of estrangement was merely due to so much extra dilapidation having taken place at each lower corner of the building; for when I mounted the large alt-azimuth instrument of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, successively on the floor of each socket exca- vation, the upper part of each corner slope or arris line of the Pyramid was found eminently confirming the angle of the side slope given by Howard Vyse's grand casing- stones. Each socket having been verified in that manner, then began Messrs. Aiton and Inglis' work of linear measure from one socket to another, all round the Pyramid, correct- ing as they best could for the ups and downs of intervening rubbish heaps; and their final result was handed to me only the day after I had left the Pyramid's deeply interest- ing neighbourhood. But it gave me quite a shock when it did arrive; for in place of being in any way near to, and confirmatory of, either the French Academy, or Colonel Howard Vyse, it was far away from both of them; or was so small as 9110 British inches; that is, for the mean of all the four sides; for they had measured each one, and found no one exactly like another; but the mean of the whole was as above. 1. This proved a startling piece of news which I had to communicate to the learned world on my return from Egypt; a rude shake to the trust hitherto reposed in the 9163 and 9168 of my predecessors; but I communicated it all the same, and have had the satisfaction of finding since then, from more recent measures, that it indicated a correction, which the world's at that time accepted numbers, required. Though just as when a pendulum drawn on one side of its position of rest, and then left to itself, not only swings back over its true and central 7 26 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. position, but invariably passes beyond it, so did this last correcting measure. For soon after its publication, another independent measure was announced by officers and men of the Royal Engineers going out to survey in the Sinaitic Peninsula, and making the Great Pyramid's base-side length 9130 British inches. After which came the more methodical proceedings of Mr. Flinders Petric in 1880, 1881 and 1882. These resulted in placing the four sockets at different levels, as had done Messrs. Aiton and Inglis; assigning them different shapes, agreeably very nearly with my own account; and finally attributing to the lines joining them different lengths, the mean of the four being 9126 British inches. He has also published two other totally different base-side lengths, viz., 9069, and 9002 of the same inches, but these we need not trouble ourselves with at present, for they are neither of them socket-defined base-sides. The first being the size of the Pyramid computed for a higher level (and therefore necessarily smaller breadth); or for a height indi- cated for each side by a small portion of a pavement found there. Found, too, in three of the four cases by merely digging a well through the rubbish mounds twenty feet deep, and utilizing it hastily for rough measure until the sides tumbled in; and the second being the very size- measure we should have nothing whatever to do with; for it is the size of the internal core masonry only, after all the casing's fiducial stones have been stripped away. But another socket-defined mensuration is spoken of in Mr. Flinders Petrie's book (first and fullest edition); viz., one on the South side of the Pyramid by a second party of the Royal Engineers in 1874. They published it as 9140 British inches long; but Mr. F. Petrie, venturing to consider that they had mistaken the proper socket mark, subtracted 17.5 inches from their measured length, and republished it as confirming his own, or being 91225 British inches only. Though, if they were to assume the power of applying the 17.5 to his 9126, there would result therefrom a base-side socket length of 9143-5 British inches. So that for actual measures of the socket-defined mean, CHAP. III.] 27 STANDARD OF LENGTH. as single base-side lengths, of the Great Pyramid, whereof none should be entirely rejected, and none should be con- sidered absolutely perfect, we have the following: British inches. 9163 9168 9110 9130 9140 9126 French Academicians Colonel Howard Vyse Messrs. Aiton and Inglis, per C. Piazzi Smyth. ... Royal Engineers, 1st Royal Engineers, 2nd Mr. Flinders Petrie ... • ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Surface Appearance of the Standard of Length. Where, then, amongst all these conflicting results of modern scientific men, is the real ancient truth likely to be found. For amongst them we may well conclude it must now be, and not outside, or inside, them all, though it was so with the two earliest measured of them for a period of sixty years. To this end, remembering the grand result we were led to touching the shape of the Great Pyramid, on sharpen- ing our faculties and elevating our instincts by the in- troduction of appropriate deductive reasoning, let us try the same kind of stimulus in this case also; viz.: let us consider, on the grounds of the best science of modern times, what grand and kindred idea might the ancient architect perhaps have had for constructing his π shaped Pyramid on such an enormous scale as is indicated by any of these base-side lengths, and still more of the exact size, neither more nor less, than what is intimated by the mean of them all; viz., 9140 British inches. At this present date of January, 1889, when I am writing this 5th edition of "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyra- mid," Mr. Waynman Dixon's gift of his uniquely whole casing-stone of that monument, enables an answer to be ar- rived at almost immediately. For taking the breadth of the bevelled front of that stone near the middle of its height; viz., 25·025 British inches, and measuring ideally therewith the mean base-side length of the whole Pyramid as given above, there results at once 365 242 for the number of times that that smaller length goes into the larger. But 365-242 is also the number of days in a mean solar year, even down to its most peculiar fraction, 0-242; which 23 [PART I THE GREAT PYRAMID. is precisely what causes of Leap-year arrangements in chronology; making every legal and social year consist of 365 days, except the fourth or Leap-year, when the days are 366; but dropping that again at larger intervals, because the fraction of the 366th day in Astronomy is not an exact 4th the part or 0.250, but more nearly 0.242 as above. The number 365.242 then, represents the number of turns and parts of a turn which the Earth makes on its axis during one revolution round the Sun; a cosmical fact which forms the very basis of all chronology for the Adamic period, at least, of man upon Earth. And that is quite enough for us, as it is all which even the Bible concerns itself about. Of little consequence is it therefore to be told by some most daring calculators of our day, that millions and millions of years before intellectual man appeared on this earth, its diurnal rotation was accomplished in half, or less than half of the time it now takes; while millions of millions of years hence it will take double the time. And equally needless is it for Egyptologists and classic scholars to tell us that neither the ancient Egyptians, nor any of the older profane nations arranged their chronology in that way or knew that number; for the characteristic of John Taylor's line for investigating the Great Pyramid is, that it is antagonistic in all its essentials to whatever was in vogue amongst the most ancient Egyptians and all other worshippers of idols made by themselves and not of the true God. The mere number, however, 365.242, which we have thus arrived at for the Great Pyramid, is in itself merely an abstract proportion, and justifies nothing of the absolute size of the monument, unless we can also show that there is a hidden meaning of a peculiarly appropriate kind, as well as almost supernatural force, contained in the length of 25.025 British inches. The answer, however, comes out at once from the best results of modern science, showing that that said measure is an even ten-millionth of the length of the earth's semi- axis of rotation. Or if modern science herself is not yet quite certain of that quantity, she enables us to say that CHAP. III.] 29 STANDARD OF LENGTH. the Pyramid measuring scale is fifty times nearer to the demanded fraction of the radius of rotation, than it is to that of an equatorial, radius of the earth; while the former has everything, and the latter nothing, to do with the earth's production of necessary days and nights to man. A Day and Year Standard indicated with remarkable and harmonious Earth Commensurability. Now this is a feature, in all sober truth, if that quantity of length was really used intentionally as a standard of measure, of the most extraordinary importance. For it is only since Newton's time that men knew anything at all approaching the exact about, or have attributed anything peculiar in its size to, the earth's axis of rotation, as different from any other diameter thereof. Its knowledge is, there- fore, to man, evidently a result of modern, very modern, science alone. And every modern civilized nation has, during the present century, been obliged to perform gigan- tic trigonometrical operations and "degree measurings," in order to arrive at any approach to accurate knowledge of the length of that Polar earth-line, or rotation axis of the earth. Neither have their numbers yet reached all desirable perfection, so that Europe is still pursuing the inquiry with more and more extensive establishments of well-trained surveyors and scientific calculators. Their best results hitherto, for the present and historical length of the earth's rotation axis (at the sea-level it is believed) oscillate generally about 500,500,000 British inches; though some of the results, from unavoidable errors of even the most advanced scientific mensurations, are as great as 500,560,000, and others as small as 500,378,000. Such then, without going into the further questions of how to take a mean of all the protuberances of the earth above the sea-level, and how to allow for the weight of the atmosphere, is the range of uncertainty in which Britain, France, Germany, America and Russia are placed at this moment with regard to the size of the world they live upon. And yet they are immensely closer in accord, and nearer to the truth than they were fifty years ago. While 30 [PART. I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. 1000, 2000 or 3000 years since, even the most scientific of men knew nothing but what was childish about the size of that earth-ball on which it had pleased God to place his last and most wondrous act of creation-man-to dwell and fulfil his destiny for, who knows, how closely circum- scribed a period. Is it possible, then, that at a much earlier date still than 3000 years ago, or on the primeval occasion of the founding of the Great Pyramid in 2170 B.C., the author of the design of that building could have known both the size, shape and motions of the earth exactly, and have intentionally chosen a certain harmonious and evenly commensurable fraction of the unique diameter of its axis of rotation as a physically and cosmically significant reference for the standard of linear measure to be employed in that building? Humanly, or by infantine human science, finding out such a length then, and in that age; of course was utterly im- possible. But if the thing was notwithstanding veritably inserted into the building as a grandly monumental fact -too grand, too often repeated, and too methodically to be owing to accident, was there not something supernatural in its introduction? And if traces of the supernatural in goodness and truth are attributable only to God and his divine inspiration, then this most ancient, yet still existing monumentalization of super-human contemporary know- ledge in cosmical measures of that time, must be one of the most remarkable facts that occurred at the beginning of the post-diluvial career of man, outside of Scripture his- tory. It must even stand next in importance to Scripture itself for all intellectual and religious mankind to inquire into, as to how, and for what end, it was allowed or aided by the Almighty both to take place, and be executed in a manner which has enabled it to last down to these days, surviving the wrecks of all the intervening great kingdoms. of the earth. Ką Earth-axis, and Year-commensurable, Result further indicated. JOAN Though we have been led in the first instance to this remarkable conclusion by a mere stone, though a fully CHAP. III.] 31 STANDARD OF LENGTH. worked casing-stone of the Great Pyramid, it may be worth while, even at the risk of some repetition, to show that we do not depend on that ultimately. The two main points for accuracy being both derived from modern science; viz., the length of the earth's axis of rotation, and the length of a side of the Great Pyramid's base, but neither of these perfectly measured. On these two, however, combined with modern astronomy's knowledge of the length of the solar year, in terms of the earth's axial revo- lution; and equally with modern arithmetical and mathe- matical lore touching the power and significance of certain fractions. Hence, still more clearly than before (and in a future chapter we shall have signal confirmations from the interior of the Great Pyramid) we are justified in up- holding on very high grounds indeed that the reason why the Great Pyramid (made already of a particular shape to enunciate the value of the mathematical term π) had also been made of a particular size, was,-in part to set forth the essence of all true chronology for man in recording the order of his works through the ages, and in understanding the chief physical basis on which alone he is ordained to prosecute them, upon this earth. For evidently this was accomplished there, by showing that the number of times that the Great Pyramid's standard of linear measure would go into the length of a side of its square base, was equal to the number of days and parts of a day in the course of a year. That standard of linear measure being, moreover, with a marvellously complete appropriateness of symbology, the ten-millionth (or in mathematical expression the ten- seventh part) of the length of the earth's semi-axis of rota- tion; or of half of that whole axis, by the earth's rotating upon which before the greater Solar Orb, that particular number of days for work and nights for rest is con- stantly being produced for all humanity in the course of the earth's annual revolution around the Sun. Hence there is here wheel within wheel of appropriate and wise meaning, far above all the then contemporary knowledge of man, and indicating far more than any mere single case of simple coincidence of numbers. A grouping, Al 32 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. indeed it is, of some of the grandest earth and heaven relations established by the Divine Creator for the accom- paniments of Adamic human life, and implying something vastly beyond mechanical accident on the part of the unknown ancient Pyramid architect; though modern Egyptologists, some Oxford classical graduates, the ancient idolatrous Egyptians and all the rest of the old Pagan world, both see, and saw, nothing in it. . The affair was, moreover, perfectly open, because it was on the surface, during all antiquity; and especially was it open during the days of the Greek philosophers in Alex- andria, when the Great Pyramid was still complete in size and finish, with its bevelled casing-stones forming the then outside finished surface of the whole. The very ground too all round about was so eininently free from both the present obstructions, and all others too accompanying ordinary masons' work, that Strabo in classic times declared that the building looked as if it had descended upon its site ready formed from heaven, and had not been erected by man's laborious toil at all. That was of course an absurdity, and the washings of occasional rains during the 1800 years which have passed since Strabo's day have shown (see Plate VI.) that the enormous amounts of builders' rubbish for whose dis- appearance he could not account had all been carefully banked up against the northern cliff of the Great Pyramid's own hill. Confirming, however, the openness of the base surface of the building on every side, in that day; and showing that any of the learned Alexandrians, whether Greek or Roman, whether astronomical like Ptolemy, or geometrical like Euclid, mythologists, idolaters and enemies of the true God though they were, by merely dividing the Great Pyramid's then most visible base-side length by the number of days in a year, might have acquired to themselves with remarkable ease and accuracy the most valuable and scientific standard of length (= 25025 British inches) for earth-dwelling man to make use of, and place himself thereby in harmony with the Great Creator. But none of them did so, or was allowed so to do. Wherefore Christians have now no need to bow to anything Grecian or Roman, either in tradition, or CHAP. III.] 33 STANDARD OF LENGTH. long perished original writings, for learning the geometry and metrology of the Great Pyramid. Beginning of reference to the Great Pyramid's numbers. And the affair grows in wonder the further we enquire into it. For Mr. Taylor, led by the numbers of British inches which measure the earth's polar-axis length-and other writers, also led by the dominance of fives in the Pyramid's construction (as that it counts five angles and five sides, including the lower plane of the base mathematically as one, and no more)-ventured the suggestion, that the author of the Great Pyramid's design employed both decimal and quinary arithmetic; and did actually use, as his smaller unit of linear measure, the one-fifth part of a one-fifth of his general standard of the Great Pyramid; viz. : as we may here say, the horizontal length of the middle face of Mr. Waynman Dixon's casing-stone; or in other words, the 32 part of the length of a side of the socket- level base of the whole monument. 1 365.242 Now the small unit of measure so obtained, measures over the standard's length 25 even, where British inches measure 25·025; and one Great Pyramid unit, or inch, equals 1·001 British inch; or is larger than a British inch, but only by so small a quantity as half a hair's breadth. An apparently unimportant feature, and yet it is by the Pyramid inch being just so much larger and no more, that it becomes. evenly, and Pyramidally earth-commensurable; so that five hundred millions of them, and not of British inches, measure the length of the earth's axis of rotation evenly and with exactitude, and constitute a Pyramid number. With these truly earth-commensurable inches of the Great Pyramid, the day standard of linear measure for the side of its base is evidently 5 × 5, or just 25 of them. And that length, while it will be shown presently to be fully deserving of the appellation, amongst all Christians, of" Sacred Cubit," we shall in the meantime only call the cubit of the Pyramid's scientific design. But in its own inches, let every one remember that the side of the Great Pyramid's base will no longer now mea- D ↓ 34 [PART. I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. sure 9140, but more nearly 913105. And next, as there are four sides to the Great Pyramid's base, the united length of all of them evidently equals 36,524.20 of the same Pyramid inches; or at the rate of a round hundred of those inches to a day, the whole perimeter of the building (already shown to represent the theoretical π circle) is here found to symbolize once again, in day lengths, 365·242, or the practical day and night circle of the year, so essen- tial to the life and labours of man, and ordained to him by the grace of his omniscient Creator and God. Now, is it not most strange, or rather, is it not ominously significant, that the ancient profane cubit of idolatrous and Pharaonic Egypt, 207 British inches long nearly, if applied either to the Pyramid's base-side, or base-diagonals, or vertical height, or arris lines, or any other known radical length of the building, brings out no notable physical fact, no mathematical truth? While the other length of 25 025 British inches (which the profane Fgyptians, and the Jupiter, Juno and Venus worshipping Greeks and Romans, when in Egypt, knew nothing of) brings out in this and other cases so many of the most important coincidences with the laws of heaven and the ordinances of this earth we inhabit, as make the ancient monument at once speak intelligibly, most intellectually and religiously as well, to the scientific understanding of all Christian men of the present day; but preferentially to the men of Great Britian, rather than to any other European nationality; and to the great Anglo-Saxon community in North America, as clearly as to our- selves. Why it seems almost to imply-so far as the closeness of a 25-025 British inch length, to being a true key for opening this part of the design of the Great Pyramid is concerned that there was more of intercommunication in idea and knowledge between the architect of the Great Pyramid, and the origines of the Anglo-Saxon race, who- ever they were and wherever they met, than between the said architect or designer of the one Great Pyramid in Egypt, and all the native Egyptian people of all the ancient ages, with their invariable 207 inch cubit, and their hideously false gods of their own invention and manu- A CHAP. III.] 35 STANDARD OF LENGTH. facture. A standard of measure, that profane Egyptian cubit, which has had no doubt a strangely long existence in the world, i.e. more than 4000 years; but which explains nothing for or about the Great Pyramid; nor for the Egyptians, except their early connection with rebellious Babel, Asiatic or Cushite Hamites, and attempts to take Heaven by storm and human might. Neither can any other pyramid in Egypt presume for a moment to compete with the Great Pyramid in its anti-Babel, all important, earth-axial, 25 inch standard, and 365 242 day, memorial. That is, none of their base-side lengths, when divided by the number of days in a year, are able to show that crucial ten-seventh of the earth's semi-axis quantity, or anything near it, or indeed anything of cosmical value. The general instinct, therefore, of the whole human race. through all ages, in so readily and universally allowing, as it did, to the first Pyramid, the surname of "Great," has been gloriously borne out, beyond all that had been ex- pected, by the application of modern measure united with scientific research. That method has, indeed, as we have just seen, and shall see again and again, its uncertainties, but within now very narrow and assignable limits. So that in the present case, while the ancient base-side of the Great Monument, so far as defined by the sockets, has been quoted so low as 9110, it has also been quoted so high as 9168 British inches; and in a manner to lead to the inference that 9140 of these inches must be very nearly indeed the true quantity. This precise figure we shall have to examine into further in a future chapter, necessarily taking up certain subsidiary modifications of particular parts of the building, as humanly constructed; but not materially altering the general question and grand outline. So that it is time now to enquire what are the measures of the base-side lengths of the greatest of all the other pyramids of Egypt, taken in the same terms? "" When measured by Colonel Howard Vyse and his assistant, Mr. Perring (the author of the 9168 measure for the Great Pyramid, and therefore rather liable to err in excess than defect)-they, that is, the respective base side D 2 36 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. lengths of those other pyramids (see Plates IV. and V.), are reported thus:- = 7400 = 4727 4254 = 4317 = 4200 Second Pyramid of Jeezeh North Stone Pyramid of Dashoor South Stone Pyramid of Dashoor The chief, or "Great" Pyramid of Saccara Third Pyramid of Jeezeh The chief Pyramid of Abooseir Northern Brick Pyramid of Dashoor Southern Brick Pyramid of Dashoor Pyramid base of Mustabat el Pharaoon Foundation for a Pyramid at Aboo-Roash . = 3840 And so we might go on through all the thirty-seven, con- tinually diminishing as they do, until the last of them, one of the Pyramids of Abooseir, has a base-side length of only 905 British inches. = 4110 = 3708 ... ... ... ··· ... ... ... ... ... ... ... • 8493 British inches. 8633 "" ?? "1 "" "" "" 19 "" "" The Great Pyramid's linear standard (25.025 British inches) contrasted with the French Metre (39.37079 British inches). We have thus arrived by a comparatively short and easy path, and dealing only as yet with the externals of the monument, at the same chief result which Mr. Taylor did, touching the Great Pyramid's standards and units of linear measure, and a probability of whence the British inch was derived in primeval days of restricted numbers of man- kind, but yet of such inveterate Cainite oppositions already started at various centres, to the true religion as continued among the Shemites, that various Divine interpositions seem to have been necessary. And what a result this is, in whatever point of view we look upon it, or by whatever fair road we have attained to it. The nations of the world 3000 years ago, of their own selves and by their own knowledge, however closely they kept to the length of their cubits as a fact, yet knew nothing but what was childish with regard to the size and shape of the earth; so that all our present acquaintance with it, as reference for standards of length, is confined within the history of the last 100 years. The great attempt of the French people, in their first Revolution, to abolish alike the Christian religion and the hereditary weights and measures CHAP. III.] 37 STANDARD OF LENGTH. of all nations, replacing the former by a worship of philosophy, and the latter by their "metre,' "French mètre" scheme, together with their attempt to substitute for the Biblical week of seven days an artificial period of ten days, is only 90 years old. And how did the French philosophers endeavour to carry out the metrological part of their ambitious plan? By assuming as their unit and standard of length the ten-millionth part of a quadrant of the Earth's curved, crooked surface! Well may we ask, with surprise, if that was all that the most advanced modern science, but in a city at the time antagonising God and His Christ, and trusting in itself was able to do for them. For the grasp of mind and understanding of the subject, that took for foundation of a straight linear measure, a curved line drawn on the earth's exterior shell, in place of the straight, internal axis of rotation, was truly inferior or even suicidal. Sir John Herschel has well said, but only after John Taylor's statement about the Great Pyramid had lighted up his mind with the exquisite thought of how near, after all, the British hereditary inch is to an integral earth-measure, and the best earth refer- ence he had ever heard of-Sir John Herschel, the poet- philosopher, and mathematical astronomer, we repeat, has said in terms never to be forgotten: "" "So long as the human mind continues to be human and retains a power of geometry, so long will the diameter be thought of more primary importance than the circumference of a circle.' And when we come to a spheroid, and in motion, the central axis of all its dynamical labour should hold a vastly superior importance still. Wherefore the Parisian Academy's superficial, and curved, metre idea, continues the admirable paragon of all recent British scientists, yet more emphatically, was not a blunder only; it was a sin' against geometrical simplicity." Again those famous and yet mistaken and misleading French philosophers ninety years ago, in fixing on the meridian quadrant of curved surface for their metre-rod's derivation, had no idea that within the last thirty years the progress of geodesy would have shown that the earth's equator was not a circle, but a rather irregular curvilinear figure, perhaps ellipsoidal on the whole, so that it has many different lengths of equatorial diameters, and there- fore also different lengths of curved quadrants of the meridian in different longitudes. They, the human. 38 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. savants of Paris, the red-revolutionary city at that time, could not foresee these things so well known in the present day; or a state of geodesic science beyond them. And yet these said deep and difficult things were all taken into account, or provided for, certainly not sinned against, by the grand and yet mysterious mind that directed the building of the Great Pyramid 4040 years ago. So that the polar semi-axis reference for the ruling linear standard, as the ten-millionth or ten-seventh part of the same earth-feature then adopted, is now shown by the general progress of all learning to be the only sound, straight, unique, and truly scientific reference for such a measure which the earth itself possesses. Through those long mediaval periods too, of darkness, confusion and war, when our nation thought of no such things as mathematics, geodesy, and linear standards, another, if not the same master-mind, very much like Providence, prevented our hereditary and quasi-Pyramid smaller unit of measure, the inch, from losing more than the thousandth part of itself. For this is the result, if it turns out as John Taylor believed-and as he was the first of men in these latter days both to believe and to publish his belief, that the Great Pyramid is the one necessarily material and memorial centre from which those practical things, weights and measures, in a primeval age, somewhere between the time of Noah and Abraham, take whatever chronology you will, were divinely distributed. But to whom? Offered perhaps to the origines of all peoples; though in that case certainly refused by some and probably by most; yet when accepted by others, by the very few, such standards were carried with them in their early migrations to the districts of earth those families were appointed to at the Dispersion; they acting under providential control for some special purpose of a future prophetic kind, totally above their then, and our now, imagining; but which is yet to make its appearance on the stage of this world's accomplished history. CHAP. IV.] EARTH SIZE AND SUN-DISTANCE. 39 CHAPTER IV. EARTH SIZE AND SUN-DISTANCE. AVING established just so much in the last chapter, though within certain limits of possible error, only, touching the base-breadth size of the Great Pyramid, and a carefully worked stone example of a hand standard of length, also found by dividing and diminishing exceedingly, but commensurably and pyramidally, a radius of rotation- length of the earth, it may now be worth our while before proceeding to multiplications still more exceeding, to examine into further data we possess for the earth's own size with still more exact accuracy; expressing now all results arrived at in Pyramid units of measure. Of the Latest Published Lengths for the Earth's Polar Axis. Expressed then in Pyramid inches (each of them 0·001 of an inch longer than the national British inch) the polar diameter, or axis of rotation of the earth, has been stated by different observers of the best modern schools of the present time to be either- 499,878,000, or 500,060,000 Pyramid inches in length; or any, and almost every, quantity between those limits. The matter cannot, in fact, be determined much closer by the best measures of the best men in the present day; and although one nation publishes its own results to an arithmetical refinement of nine places of figures, that is not any proof of physical exactness, and cannot convince 40 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. any other nation of its correctness beyond the first three places of figures, or perhaps four. Not only, too, do the experts of two different countries produce different measured results for the length of one and the same earth's axis of rotation, but they produce. different results in computing the same observations: until even one and the same computer will produce vary- ing quantities out of the same data by different methods of computation; the absolute correctness or sufficiency of any one of which methods for such a particular practical case, he does not pretend to guarantee. A good example of the condition just described of our best present knowledge of the earth's size was given by a volume published by the Ordnance Survey in 1866. It contained some splendid computations by Colonel Clarke, R.E., the chief mathematician of the establishment, and gave perhaps the most highly advanced results of all earth surveys then made by any and every nation. Yet he pre- sents his final results in two different shapes, and by one of them makes the Polar axis of the earth (reduced here from British into Pyramid inches) to measure, by one mode of calculation- 499,982,000, and by another 500,022,000 : leaving the reader to choose which he likes, or any weighted mean between the two, as the one true quantity in Nature. That publication was in its day a most creditable ad- vance upon everything before it; but is not to remain untouched; for already the Geodesic Confederation under General Ibanez (of Spain) are observing all over Europe for new results; although fairly warned by President Barnard, of Columbia College, New York, in 1872, that innumerable small irregularities in the earth's figure throw such almost inconceivable difficulties into the final calculations, that if all the geodesic operations yet carried on by all nations during the last 100 years be described as "40 Latitudes," they must be eventually increased to no less than 4000 such, before the materials of observation will be sufficient for the mathematicians to begin their unweildy discussions of high, future-day CHAP. IV.] EARTH SIZE AND SUN-DISTANCE. 4J science upon, with any probability of a much more certain result. Other Diameters of the Earth, besides the Polar. Meanwhile we have already assumed as the Polar axis length for computation in the Pyramid comparisons 500,000,000 Pyramid inches, + or - probably 20,000 inches; and that being a quantity which the above-quoted ordnance publication may, and to a certain extent does largely confirm,-let us hasten on to an equally close know- ledge of what other diameters of the carth may measure. 1 290 300 310) These lengths depend partly on what amount of elliptical compression at the Poles, the computers assume: as, either 256, or abʊ, or sl, from special measures of it; and partly on what shape they assign to the transverse section of the carth in the plane of the Equator, where a species of elliptical compression is supposed to exist. To a lesser degree of course than at the Poles,-but still to an extent that may make one of the equatorial diameters 150,000 Pyramid inches longer than another. I have represented, therefore, these extremes in the first and third numerical columns of the accompanying table; placing between them the very set of earth measures which I had computed as probably nearest the truth in the first edition of "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid." Table of the Earth's Diameters in Five Different Latitudes, and on Three Assumptions of Equatorial Protuber- ance, IN PYRAMID INCHES. Latitudos referred to. Polar diameter Diam. in Lat., 60° Diam. in Lat., 45° Diam. in Lat., 30° Diam. at Equator Result with Result adopted in Clarke's smallest "OurInheritance," Equatorial First Edition, Diameter, 1866. 1864. 500,000,000 500,396 000 500,792,000 501,186,000 501,577,000 Result with Clarko's largest Equatorial Diameter, 1866. ¦ 500,000,000 500,000,000 500,420,000 500,435,000 500,869,000 500,840,000 501,257,000 501,301,000 501,672,000 501,730,000 42 [PART I THE GREAT PYRAMID. With these data for the Earth, and those already assumed for the Great Pyramid, some further interesting approximations of commensurability have been obtained, between the humanly erected monument and the Divinely-created world. But not closer or better than the derivation of the standard of linear measure already described; and meanwhile a new analogy on a totally different, but not opposing, astronomical scale has been started, as below:- PYRAMID AND NOW, Solar, ANALOGY. This reference seemed at last obtained when Mr. William Petrie (father of Mr. F. Petrie already alluded to), after studying the mensurations detailed in my book, Life and Work at the Great Pyramid," in 1867, deduced a Pyramid expression for representing the distance of the Sun from the Earth, or vice versa. << An enormous length of line, even in the heavens, is this sun-distance, and before which the mere size of the earth vanishes almost into nothingness; yet is it a finite distance from the great centre of light, heat and support of all physical terrestrial life on which man's existence eminently depends; with which all his science is intimately bound up; and concerning which it behoves him to know fully as much as it may have pleased the Creator to permit and expect him to learn. The merciful Creator, who has further caused to be written for our benefit in the Book of Inspiration: "The Lord God is a Sun and Shield," and again, as quoted by Padre Secchi from the Vulgate: "The Highest hath placed His Tabernacle in the Sun." Mr. Petrie had remarked, and naturally enough, that the circle typified by the base of the Great Pyramid had already been proved to symbolise a year, or the earth's annual revolution round the sun, when tested with the larger linear standard of 100 Pyramid inches. And the radial length for that typical base-perimeter circle had also been shown to reside in the simple vertical height of the Great Pyramid, by reason of the T shape of the whole building. CHAP. IV.] EARTH SIZE AND SUN-DISTANCE. 43 Then that one vertical line, said Mr. Petrie further, must represent also the mean radius of the earth's ellipti- cal orbit round the sun, however far away that luminous centre may be. And the scale on which the solar orbit is represented in the Pyramid is the fraction 109, or 1000,000,000th, because amongst other reasons 10 with 9 forms one mode of viewing and defining practically the π shape of the Great Pyramid; viz., by taking it at the corners (see Figs. 1 and 2 in Plate XX.). For there, with every ten linear units that the structure advances inwards on the diagonal of the base towards central, nocturnal darkness, it practically rises upwards or points to sun- shine, daylight, and sky, by nine. Nine, too (viz., five angles + four sides), being the number of these ten characteristic parts which the sun shines on in such a shaped Pyramid and in such a latitude at noon, through the greater part of the year, when the sun is said "to sit on the Pyramid with all his rays," and the building "to devour its own shadow;" that is, have none. The Pyramid Sun-Distance. To computation Mr. Petrie instantly proceeded, reducing the 5813 (or perhaps, according to an unfortunate fancy of his at the time, 5826) Pyramid inches of the Great Pyramid's vertical height (computed by the π augle from the socket-defined base-side length already obtained) to British inches. Then multiplying them by the ninth power of ten, and turning the resulting number into British miles in the usual manner, he brought out the quantity of 91,840,000 of those miles, nearly. Alas! sighed he in the year 1867; the analogy does not hold even in the second place of figures, for the real sun- distance has been firmly held by all the highest modern astronomers through the last half century to be 95,233,055 British miles. So he threw his papers on one side, thinking he had erred altogether in the very conception, and then attended to other matters, until one happy morning when he (at that time a busy professional man, occupied with his chemical engineering, besides his own serious and exalted 44 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. religious avocations) chanced to hear, that although the above ruling number in the scientific world of 95 millions of miles for the sun-distance had held mankind enthralled ever since he was born, yet the astronomical leaders of society had been forced to awaken during the last twelve years to a new responsibility, and not only admit that that number might possibly be erroneous (even very erroneous; or faulty even in the second place of figures), but to institute many series of difficult observations on either side of the Equator, with the object of determining what the correction should be. Some of these observations, too, had actually just then been collected from both Australia and South America, as well as Russia and Germany; and the daily press was full of their newly computed results. And what were they? Why, one group of astronomers of several nations declared the true mean sun-distance to be about ninety to ninety-one millions of miles; and another group of the same and other nations declared it to be much greater, viz., from ninety-two to ninety-three millions of miles, or more. And while they were contending as to whose results were gifted with the least amount of probable error, Mr. Petrie steps in and shows that the Great Pyramid result, which he had formerly allowed to drop from his hands, out of his exceeding respect for the great astronomers of the 19th century, is between the two latest and best of their revolutionary corrections of their own previous standard ninety-five million quantity. Indeed, his Pyramid number represented nearly the mean of their two conflicting groups, and formed therefore in itself, and in all its grand Pyramidal simplicity and antiquity, a single representation of the whole of the numerous, laborious and costly sun-distance results of all modern human science, even up to the present passing years. Granting, therefore, that modern science is now, i.e., not in that past day of darkness of 1850 or 1855, but in these enlightened times of 1889, so far and securely advanced, that it may talk at least on the average of its best latest results with some degree of confidence, as to what may not improbably be very near the truth, for that quantity so CHAP IV.] EARTH SIZE AND SUN-DISTANCE. 45 ultra difficult to obtain from observation, viz., the earth's mean celestial sun-distance, behold the practically correct figures for it were built in monumentally by the Great Pyramid's designer no less than 4040 years ago; or before any of even the most advanced of all the nations of mankind had begun to run their independent, self-willed, and too generally theotechnic and idolatrous courses. p The Great Pyramid before Science. What a solemn witness, then, is not the Great Pyramid to all the religious aud scientific history of mankind. For, placed in the midst among men, and especially those of the earliest inhabited regions of the post-diluvial earth, thus has been standing the Great Pyramid ever since Dispersion times. And they, the men so honoured, never knowing anything of its knowledge-capacity, or suspecting its profound meaning; although, too, the types of some portions of it were on the surface all the time. Nor is there a glimpse of the same kind to be found in any of the other Pyramids of Egypt; for they have neither the essential π shape to justify the symbology, nor suffi- cient height to give the numerical fact when multiplied by 109, as will appear in the following list founded on Colonel Howard Vyse's measures. Vertical Heights of all the greater Egyptian Pyramids in Great Pyramid Inches. Great Pyramid of Jeezeh Second Pyramid of Jeezeh North stone Pyramid of Dashoor South stone Pyramid of Dashoor South brick Pyramid of Dashoor Chief Pyramid of Abooseir Third Pyramid of Jeezeh North brick Pyramid of Dashoor Chief Pyramid of Saccara Middle Pyramid of Abooseir And at last, as see Plates IV. and V., Pyramid-base of Mustabat el Pharaoon Small Fyramid of Abooseir ... ... ... ··· ... ... ... ... ** ... ••• ... ... 5813 5446 4107 4025 3205 2731 2613 2583 2403 2054 719 and 558 Nor has any purely stone building whatever been rected, in any country or any age, until we come to the ing of the Cathedral of Cologne in the years follow- Franco-German War of 1870, high enough to 46 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. compete with the Great Pyramid's glory in even this one particular. See Plate I., the Frontispiece, representing all the most famous stone buildings of the world in time and in height; showing how they began with grandest height, degraded through the following classic ages to mere rustic elevations, but have been rising once more in altitude through Christian times. But again we shall have to tell, and from facts ascertain- able in just as eminently practical a manner as the above, how all that wonderful scientific information (more than wonderful for the age and circumstances under which it. was placed there) was not introduced into the Great Pyra- mid for strengthening men in science; much less was it to promote the name and glory of the introducer. Science is there, but almost solely, as it would now seem, to prove to these latter scientific days of the earth, that the building so designed in the beginning of the Noachian world, when human school science was not-has now a right, a title and authority, to speak to men of these times, and even to the most scientific of them, on another and far higher subject; or of things unseen, yet quick and powerful, "piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart;" besides certainly testifying to something more than mere natural-history evolution having holpen some men in the early ages of humanity. Venus Transit Appendix in 1889. Between the modern date, 1873, when the above paragraph was written for one of the earlier editions of this book, and the present time, two transits of the planet Venus across the Sun's disc have occurred, viz., in 1874 and 1882; and were taken up with such enormous zeal by both the govern- ments and people of scientific establishments of all nations, with the special expectation of producing a new and more correct knowledge of the Sun's mean distance from our Earth as to make quite an epoch in the history of science. But it ended more in the way of showing how much money can be prodigally spent on a popular subje some occasions, than to bring out any settled CHAP. IV.] EARTH SIZE AND SUN-DISTANCE. 47 of the ancient Great Pyramid's quantity. For though it may be said that the mean of all the more trustworthy of the 1872 results is rather between 92 and 93, than 91,898 millions of miles, yet the variations of some results from others, and even from possibility, as in making the Sun-distance greater than infinity, was scandalizing to modern science, and not at all subversive of the Great Pyramid. Hence, too, there was a remarkable cooling down of the interest of nations at the second transit in 1882. Russia, with all her eminent school of Struveian astronomers, backed out of the affair altogether, and preferred to reserve herself for some peculiar future observations of a totally different kind; while the expeditions to different parts of the earth of other nations were carried out in a much more modest style than in 1874. But at each of the transits, strange to say, there was one first-rate determination, derived from a pair of well- chosen stations on opposite sides of our globe, which brought out almost exactly the Pyramid Sun-distance, viz.: in 1874 that by M. Puiseux, the French Academician; on hearing of which, the good Abbé Moigno exclaimed, “La Grande Pyramide à vaincu;" and in 1882 that by M. J. C. Houzeau de Lehaie, the then Belgian Astronomer Royal; and received with eminent respect by the American Pyra- mid Association at Cleveland, Ohio. But some of the other observations on each occasion are not computed or not published yet; while the successive results brought out by others are now seldom stated in the form of Sun-distance. For astronomers have been so quizzed by the ignorant world as having, when wielding a supposed exact science, made a mistake of three millions of miles in measuring a straight line (just as if they had had it before them to handle as such), that they now state only the parallax, or the microscopic little angle under which (with them) "the greatest equatorial radius" of the earth is seen from the Sun. Said angle being so small, on account of the immense distance of the Sun according to any hypo- thesis, as to be less than nine seconds of space; and to require very remarkable astronomical instruments to sub- divide it into many fractional parts. 48 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Apparent Irregularities of the Great Pyramid's Corner Sockets. Meanwhile some ultra questionings have arisen as to the Great Pyramid's own size, in consequence of what Mr. F. Petrie has recently re-discovered at the place, viz.: that each socket is not only at a different level, as already announced by other measurers; but at a different distance from the centre of the base of the whole monument; so that in place of all uniting in one size, and one thence derived Sun-distance, four different sizes (within certain small limits) and four different Sun-distances, or one for each socket or each arris line might be given forth. But in an admirable paper by the Rev. H. G. Wood, of Sharon, Pa., reprinted in my "New Measures of the Great Pyramid by a new Measurer," from pp. 493 to 502 of the "International Standard," published at 30, Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, U. S. America, that very able author seems to ask what objection to the elder William Petrie's Sun distance analogy is there in that? For does not every one know that the earth's orbit round the Sun is an ellipse, and not a circle. And the Sun being in one focus of the ellipse, its distance from the earth must be varying, within certain computable limits, all the year through. The Pyramid, too, being a monument of day and year duration, as well as Sun-distance, it is much more bound to show the varying distances of the Sun at four seasons of the year, than to sum them all up in one mean state- ment for the benefit of those who do not care to go into Nature's wonderful refinements, by which much higher results are brought out at last, than man, at the first blush of the case, had thought likely or sufficient. No wonder therefore that Mr. Wood concludes his essay thus modestly and philosophically- We have not yet discovered the whole truth of this marvellous edifice. But although it has been terribly shaken and wrenched (by earthquakes, with dislocations of some of the rock on which it stands and has stood from before history to the present time), and though men may criticize some of its distorted lines, it cannot reasonably be denied that the architect had a wonderful knowledge of astronomy, geology, and pure mathematics," -i.c., before the day of Abraham ! The whole opposition, however, was by no means thereby CHAP. IV.] EARTH SIZE AND SUN-DISTANCE. 49 silenced; for in a new Edition of his "Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh," Mr. Flinders Petrie confirms his first Edition, re-directing enquirers to it for the exactest of his views. Whence we find in the present case (see his pp. 182 and 220) that he expresses the Great Pyramid's base- side length by one quantity equal to only 9060 Pyramid inches; and holds that that reduced length is coincident with nothing noble either in heaven or on earth. Yet how has so small a base-side length been deduced from even his previously stated basal measure, on the mean socket-floor level 9117 of the same inches? Thus. Partly by computing a reduction in size for the Great Pyramid by taking it, not on the level of any one of its socket-floors, but on that of a small piece of pave- ment near the middle of the Northern side, and which is 23 inches above one socket and 40 inches above another; and partly by further diminishing even that size by an almost arbitrary assumption of his own, that the basal corner stones never filled the sockets that were cut for them, but had four inches free play on every side (see his p. 38); and proved the Great Pyramid to have had eight inches less of base-breadth, on that account alone, than ever suspected before! In former years I had unfortunately to oppose W. Petrie, the father, in his attempts to propound that the basal breadth was 25 inches greater than the 9131 Pyramid inches, which I believed the rock-cut sockets justified. And now, while by no means denying that at any assumed higher level, the flank of the Pyramid will measure less, according to Pyramidal law, than lower down,-I must protest against F. Petrie, the son, not only putting forth that smaller elevation-computed length of his, as if it was the only reference the Great Pyramid possessed for base breadth; but also cutting off from each end of even that, such a lump of a quantity as four inches; on the plea, mainly, that the Great Pyramid's ancient Architect needed so abundant a free play in fitting a corner stone into the socket cut for it in the rock; when he, Mr. Petrie himself, found that ancient Architect's casing-stone's joints (see our page 20) often worked over long lengths to within a truth of 001 and 002 of an inch; and their interior E 50 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. suriaces even then, though in quasi contact, yet primed uniformly with cement in such ultra thin sheets as he allows seemed impossible to be executed by himself. Wherefore the result of this last diversion, by a philo- Egyptologist, in the current of our purely Great Pyramid research, is merely to assure us more certainly than ever that among the slightly varying levels and central dis- tances of the Great Pyramid's four several rock-cut sockets there is one of them indicating a base-side length of 9131 Pyramid inches; and justifying thereby for the Monument every noble allusion that has already appeared in these pages. CHAP. V.] GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS. 51 CHAPTER V. GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS. FTER our last chapter, it may not improbably be Α' demanded by many of my readers to be shown a few proofs, if they exist, of some practical science of much more ordinary and simple terrestrial kind having been really understood and intended by the primeval designer of the Great Pyramid,-before they can conscientiously as well as intellectually admit the probably non-accidental charac- ter of such abstruse numerical coincidences as have hitherto been chiefly dealt with. The request is most reasonable, and the long-ago accom- plished facts of the Pyramid itself enable me to furnish more than one answer immediately, in both chorography, geography and applied astronomy. Orientation of the Sides of the Great Pyramid. To begin, the reader may be reminded, that the square base of the Great Pyramid is very truly oriented for any large building, or placed with its sides facing astronomically due North, South, East and West. And this fact at once abolishes certain theories to the effect that all the pheno- inena of that Pyramid have to do with pure geometry alone. For to pure geometry of the Euclidean kind, as well as to school arithmetic, all azimuths or orientations are alike. Whereas one most peculiar astronomical azimuth or direc- tion was picked out for each of the sides of the base of the Great Pyramid. In the early ages of the world, the very correct orienta- tion of a cumbrous pile of architecture must have been not a little difficult to the rude patriarchs of the period. Yet E 2 52 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. with such approach to precision had the operations been primevally performed on the Great Pyramid, that the French Academicians in A.D. 1799 expressed themselves not a little astonished at the closeness. And yet the reality was far closer than all they were then aware of; viz., that their "Citizen-Astronomer Nouet, in the Month Nivose of their republican year 7," as related by M. Jomard, "made refined observations of reference from the Great Pyramid to the culminations of certain stars; and though he had only the rough and ruined sides of the mere core- masonry of the monument before him, he found the error of its sides to be less than 20' of angle." Yet with that quantity so brought out, as an upper limit of maximum error, the French Academicians of the grand Napoleonic compilation expressed themselves delighted; and considered it a physical and historical proof which the ancient Pyramid was able to give them, when tested thus severely in the latter days, "that the azimuthal direction of the earth's axis of rotation had not sensibly altered, relatively to the sides of the Great Pyramid, during probably 4000 years." At the present epoch, however, we require closer approxi- mation than this. Possibility of Azimuthal Change in the Crust of the Earth. The chances of some small alteration of that kind existing, had been mooted from time to time among astrono- mers, but dropped out of view again when it seemed to elude any possibility of proof, as well as to be a matter not of pure astronomy, but rather of geography, general physics and geology. In its mere surface character, therefore, on the earth, it must be kept entirely distinct from the astronomical phenomenon proper, and which few but astronomers attend very closely to, viz., the angular direction of the earth's whole axis of rotation in space. It is in this latter absolute feature that the semi-mysterious effect of the precession of the equinoxes comes prominently into view, with its slow but accumulating chronological changes from age to age in the calendar times, and exact directions, of the risings and settings of stars. CHAP. V.] 53 GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS. In the former problem, therefore, it is not a question of where the axis of the earth is pointing to in space beyond; but, in what part of the geographical surface of the earth itself are the ends of the axis situated in one age, as compared with another. Now this is how, more especially in its surface differen- tial light, the problem was properly discussed, though but rudely and approximately, by the French savants of the Revolution. And it was in this light also that the principle of it had been clearly seen long before, and held to be a worthy cynosure of both historical study and applied astronomical observation, by the penetrating genius of the English Dr. Hooke. For it was this early and ill-paid, but invaluable Secre- tary of the Royal Society of London, who in his discourse on earthquakes, about the year 1677 A.D., remarks : "Whether the axis of the earth's rotation bath, and doth continually, by a slow progression, vary its position with respect to the parts of the carth (that is the very point); and if so, how much and which way, which must vary both the meridian lines of places, and also their particular latitudes ? that it had been very desirable, if from some monuments or records in antiquity, somewhat could have been discovered of certainty and exact- ness; that by comparing that or them with accurate observations now made, or to be made, somewhat of certainty of information could have been procured. "But I fear we shall find them all insufficient in accurateness to be anyways relied upon. "( However," says the Doctor, with brightening hope, "if there can be found anything certain and accurately done, either as to the fixing of a meridian line on some stone building or structure now in being, or to the positive or certain latitude of any known place, though possibly those observations or constructions were made without any regard or notion of such an hypothesis; yet some of them, compared with the present state of things, might give much light to this enquiry. "Upon this account," continues Dr. Hooke, “I perused Mr. Greaves' description of the Great Pyramid in Egypt, that being fab.ed to have been built for an astronomical observatory, as Mr. Greaves also takes notice. I perused his book, I say, hoping I should have found among many other curious observations he there gives us concerning them, some observations perfectly made, to find whether it stands east, west, north and sout, or whether it varies from that respect of its sides to any other part or quarter of the world; as likewise how much, and which way they now stand. But to my wonder, he being an astronomical professor, I do not find that he had any regard at all to the same, but seems to be wholly taken up with one enquiry, which was about the measure or bigness of the whole and its parts; and the other matters mentioned are only by-the-bye and accidental, which shows how useful theories may be for the future to such as shall make observations; nay, though they should not be true, for that it will hint many enquiries to be taken notice of, which would otherwise 54 THE GREAT PYRAMID. PART I. not be thought of at all, or at least but little regarded, and but super- ficially and negligently taken notice of. I find, indeed, that he mentions the south and north sides thereof, but not as if he had taken any notice whether they were exactly facing the south or north, which he might easily have done. Nor do I find that he had taken the exact latitude of them; which methinks had been very proper to have been retained upon record with their other description.' There is a wonderful amount of truth and force in these remarks of Dr. Hooke, showing an originality and power of scientific view far before his age; and exhibiting even a still more remarkable foresight of what would become a very much studied question in that same Pyramid field he was discoursing on. And if there is rather too much bitterness shown towards a contemporary, it may be said in excuse and mitigation thereof, that Nature had made him, Dr. Hooke, for so his biographer asserts, "short of stature, thin and crooked; so that in reality he could not help it. This real mental phenomenon, then, of science, Dr., Secretary, Hooke, "who seldom retired to bed till two or three o'clock in the morning, and frequently pursued his studies during the whole night," would not have been so hard upon his predecessor in difficult times if he had known, and as we may be able by and by to set forth, what extraordinarily useful work in another and not very far removed direction it was, that Professor Greaves zealously engaged in, when at the Great Pyramid. For verily some mighty secrets and leading principles of grandly carth commensurable metrology for all nations, but chiefly for the Bible-believing, One-God-worshipping of mankind, the great monument of primeval antiquity contained untouched within itself, from the earliest ages; though always ready to yield them up and even assist in publishing them, when examined with skill and know- ledge by exactly such measures as Professor Greaves began the application of, under immense difficulties and con- tinually impending fanatical dangers. Dr. Hooke's diatribes should therefore rather have been levelled against many of Greaves' successors to be: viz., those who were to visit the Great Pyramid in easy times, when neither Turks nor Mamelukes were a power to be feared, when their own Christian nations were beginning to advance in wealth, science, numbers and power; and ور CHAP. V.] 55 GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS. yet would do nothing more, when visiting the Great Pyramid, than indulge in feasting and mischief. Hence, excepting only M. Nouet's rough beginning in 1799, it seems to have remained for myself, in 1865, to attempt, at least, to determine with something like modern accuracy the astronomical azimuth of the Great Pyramid. And to do this, not on its ruined sides only, but on its ancient fiducial sockets as defining the corners of the base; and afterwards, and still more importantly, on its internal passages, the masonry of which is of the same superlative accuracy as that of the great Vyse casing-stones in situ already alluded to in Chapter II., or not of an inch in error, in a run of 150 inches. } 50 These passages, long, white-stoned and straight, though at a certain angle of dip, had most evidently received much of the exceeding care of the ancient architect. And though for some deep reasons, enquired into further on in this book, they were not established by him in the central, vertical, right plane of the whole Great Pyramid, were yet placed with astonishing accuracy parallel thereto. Which is, for infinite distance, what amounts to the self- same orientation in astronomy. Popular Ideas of Astronomical Orientation. How it came about that a generation or two ago such a glamour arose in the public mind about magnetism, I do not know; but with the many, astronomy seemed for a time to be valued beneath "the occult principle" even for astronomical results. Thus in George R. Gliddon's Otia Egyptiaca, that generally acute author seems to think that he is clevating his supposed and favourite ancient Egyptians of the Great Pyramid to far higher praise, by attributing their success in correctly, or nearly so, orienting that monument, to "their knowledge of the laws of the magnet," rather than to their direct, unflinching astronomical observations. He being evidently quite ignorant, that by the needle alone they might have been many degrees in astronomical error, and that the very idea, in a modern observatory, of placing one of the meridian instruments in position by 56 [PART J. THE GREAT PYRAMID. means of the magnetic compass, which may be-- even because of "its laws"-dozens of degrees out, and more so in one age than another, would be jeered at as the most childish folly ever indulged in by grown up men. So, of course, my own observations at the Great Pyramid in 1865 had nothing to do with occult magnetism and its rude, uncertain, untrustworthy, pointings-but employed an astronomical alt-azimuth instrument of very notable size and perfection, with a powerful telescope, large circles, and reading off the angle by microscope-micrometers to a single second. This instrument had been brought from the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, expressly for this purpose, and it had come into the possession of that Institution as a legacy from the celebrated Professor Playfair, of mathematics, about 1815. For to him it had been presented in 1806 by a number of his passed students, after they had procured its special construction by the then infallible optician for that kind of instrument, Troughton. After various preliminary essays on other parts of the building, especially the corner sockets, I finally decided to compare the axis of the entrance passage with the Polar- star, as to azimuthal or horizontal deviation. Mounting the Playfair circle, therefore, on a tripod of special make, over the exact central axis line of the passage produced upwards and outwards to the North end of its protruding floor, or "basement sheet of stone," the circular instru- ment of modern times was enabled thereby to look down backwards and Southwards at a lamp-signal nicely adjusted in the centre of the dark passage-way far below, and give the reading for that. Then the telescope with its circles was turned round under the microscopes to look upwards. and Northwards at the Polar-star. And that, too, not in a general way merely, but by making repeated observations. upon it, at and about the chronometer time of its greatest elongation Westward; when for several minutes the slow- ness as well as the upward and downward direction of its motion in its own very small circle of 1° 25′ radius of travel round the Pole, enables any particular dependence on extreme exactness of the time to be dispensed with. After which, that observed position of side elongation for the CHAP. V.] 57 GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS. Pole-star was reduced by the proper methods of calculation to the vertical of the Polar point itself. And with what result? With this as a first step merely, that Citizen Astronomer Nouet's accusation of 19′ 58" of error in 1799, was reduced to about 5' only. This outcome, however, having been thus obtained at the Great Pyramid, with certainty to under a few seconds, and the season of the year being very suitable to twilight observations of the Pole-star at greatest elongation--the lamp-signals for dark passages being also well organized and the Arabs drilled into helping at the transport and prepara- tions-I took the instrument round the next night to the entrance passage of the Second Pyramid. Exactly similar observations were then made there, but with this very unexpected result, that that passage pointed in azimuth almost exactly as did that of the Great Pyramid; viz.: not to the Polar point's own vertical, or true astronomical, cardinal, meridian North, but to close upon 5' West of it! : And again, on another night still, the Playfair circle and its attendant signals were taken to another ancient building of nearly the same Pyramid age, viz. the granite Temple of Shafre (then lately uncovered), and the align- ment of its grand hall, now unroofed, was found, but not to any very worthy degree of certainty, by reason of original defects in the masonry-to be at all events considerably like that of the entrance passages of both the Great and Second Pyramids. This closeness of results among themselves, all agreeing in an error in the same direction and to nearly the same amount therein, was something confounding at the time. But I printed the particulars of both observations and computations in Vols. 1 and 2 of my "Life and Work at the Great Pyramid, 1867." And now, nearly 20 years thereafter, I have the satisfaction of finding in Mr. Flinders Petrie's book, that instead of overthrowing the whole of these observations, he remarkably confirms them; ascertaining by still more numerous observations, that all the most accurate and best preserved Great Pyramidal lines point, not to the vertical of the Polar point itself, but to about five minutes and a half or three quarters to the 58 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. West of it, with a variation amongst themselves of a few seconds only. Here, then, at last is Dr. Hooke's burning desire to have some proof of the stability of astronomical directions drawn on the surface of the earth, or on remarkable buildings, from age to age, satisfied to a degree of precision that neither he, nor any of his successors down to the present day ever expected, or had before them, until these very late observations on the Great Pyramid began. For it need hardly be insisted on, or rather it goes without saying, amongst persons accustomed to judge of angular measurements in astronomy, that the agreement of so many different Pyramid measures in establishing the same amount and direction of error, in the Polar bearings of the buildings, can be explained far more probably by assuming just such a change as Dr. Hooke expected, from the crust of the earth moving slowly over the ends of the axis of its diurnal rotation, during the long period since the Great Pyramid was built, than by any fortuitous coincidence of observers' errors on a perfectly stationary polar line through all ages. But then what a superlative slowness of movement, implying thereby a grand cosmical stability, does not the Great Pyramid set forth in its 5' and some seconds only in 4000 years, to check the vagaries of certain modern writers! As of one who, in a work we must suppose does otherwise contain much good and sound information, because it is entitled "The Truth of the Bible,"—yet declares that the direction of the sun at the summer solstice, is now at Stonehenge no less than 12 degrees different from what it was at the time of the erection of that monument, which is probably not more than a third as old as the Great Pyramid. While another writer, in this case a civil engineer, would make the azimuthal direction of the Pole move progressively and spirally with regard to the earth's crust; but so rapidly, even at the present time, as to be changing at the rate of 45 seconds every year, equivalent to 50 degrees during the last 4000 years. How refreshing, then, is it not to read in Mr. Flinders Petrie's antagonistic book, first his Pyramid astronomical observations of orientation-changes confirming mine, both CHAP. V. 59 GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS. in direction and smallness of quantity; and then his acute considerations founded thereon, and setting forth,-that though modern high science has not yet admitted any movement of the kind, there must be a very minute amount of such azimuthal change of the earth's crust going on still, but only at the rate of a tenth part of one degree in 4000 years. Wherefore he argues that a moral responsibility now lies at the door of the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain, so patronized at its beginning by the scientific men of the nation, and gloriously upheld ever since by Government, -to observe for, and probably thereby establish, this great natural earth-fact for the nation: viz., by repeating, at the present time, some of their earliest measured azimuths of British stations taken by General Roy and others of their surveying leaders in the Georgian era of our country. For by this date a displacement of several seconds ought to have taken place, or to an extent which Ramsden's great three-foot theodolite ought to be able to render an account of. Further Test by Latitude. The question, however, admits of being additionally enquired into by latitude observations, as good Dr. Hooke also pointed out, and as I too was not slow in seeking some practical proofs of when encamped before the Eastern side of the Great Pyramid in 1865. The instrument employed was of course the Playfair alt-azimuth circle again; but now no terrestrial lamp- signals were required. The ancient and long empty rock- cut tombs which my Wife and self occupied for our abode, were opposite, though not exactly, to the middle, of that Eastern side of the base of the Great Pyramid. What more, therefore, was needed as a first result from observation, than to obtain the astronomical latitude of any standing spot within a few feet more or less anywhere thereabouts? - Nothing! So the Playfair instrument was erected between the two tombs on a platform excavated out of the rock, where it could see a large part of the sky; and 60 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. night after night stars were observed in the usual manner of refined surveying for latitude. Perhaps I ought to have been content with that result; but having obtained so much with extreme ease, another idea came up and fired me to make another observation more unexceptionably freed than the preceding, from a certain possible influence which was occupying just then a good deal of attention amongst the geodetic officers of several countries. This was, the attraction, sometimes of mountain masses, sometimes of concealed nuclei of extra density beneath the surface of the earth, on the plumb- line. Equally too, on the spirit level, or whatever other gravitational references are employed for any, or all, instrumental measures of latitude to start from. So to prevent to the utmost any possible influence, though to ever so small an amount, arising from the Great Pyramid's mass being at "East Tombs' in a position where it might, if powerful enough, pull the plumb-line away, somewhat, from the true direction of the Nadir point below, I resolved to place the giant beneath the instru- ment where he could do no harm, whatever might be his weight and attractive power; or in other words, to place the instrument on the top of the Great Pyramid for a whole night of star observation. Our Arab servants were enthusiastic at the idea. My Wife was exceedingly brave. Special arrangements were made with the Sheiks to protect property below, and to furnish a carrying party. So up, one fine afternoon, after all "the travellers" had disappeared,-up to the little platform of dilapidation at the top of the Great Pyramid went the Playfair circle with ourselves, some camp equi- page and a few extra astronomical requirements. And as the shades of evening began to fall, the carrying party having been dismissed, we fell to work; and by aid of the clear sky of a rainless land, all the required stars were successfully observed. The Great Pyramid's latitude was therefore then obtained to a nicety off its own summit, with itself for the instru- ment's stand, so grandly firm and so gloriously high, as to raise us, through all the darkness of the night, into a mid- CHAP. V.] 61 GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS. air position, with the whole broad earth, for anything we could see to the contrary, contracted to a mere thirty-feet square plateau of isolated stone; the stars infinitely distant above, and the melancholy desert wind sighing far, far below us; while ever and anon a broad winged vulture would come sweeping out of the darknes on one side, to plunge down and disappear into that on the other. But all this was supposed to be necessary to obtain a latitude for the very centre of the primeval monument that would not be cavilled at on fancy grounds by critical stayers-at-home. And the numbers for it that came out after computation on returning to "East Tombs" were 29° 58′ 51″. What sort of service, however, would these figures have been, let us ask, to excellent Dr. Hooke, could he have been restored to life in such knowledge-condition as he had when he left this busy world? For what he may be gifted with now, who of us can tell! By themselves, how- ever, and to him as Secretary of the Royal Society 240 years ago, the numbers would probably have been useless for any purpose. But to me, in 1865, they came with a most precious meaning; for before setting sail for Egypt, I had been privileged to make out a kind of theory of the construction rules of the Great Pyramid, which required that it should stand, at the date of its erection, in the latitude of 30° even. And this theory had been published in 1864 in the firstition of the present book; while some of its details may be seen in Plate XXII. of the present edition. If, then, we should assume, for trial only, that the latitude. of the Great Pyramid, at its date of foundation, was 30° exact, how can we explain that it is less now by I′ 9″; or say 1'. For of that quantity of defalcation there could be no doubt at all with the Playfair circle. At the time of my first publication of these results, astronomical science in high places in London was dead against anything approaching to a change of latitude being possible; and certainly nothing of the kind had then been deduced from either modern observatory work, or the New- tonian theory of gravitation. But very recently the subject, as mooted in other places, and especially at the great da > 32 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Russian Observatory of Pulkowa, has been closely discussed before the Royal Astronomical Society of London; and the possibility of the fact, as well as the inability of theory to indicate its origin or its laws, has so far been allowed, that certain pairs of geographical stations have been chosen on opposite sides of the earth, where, by observing with twin manufactured instruments, and according to similar methods, there may, sooner than elsewhere, be proved whether there really is such a turning over of the crust of the earth past the present places of both Poles and Equator. The probability having been already further indicated in the former editions of my Pyramid book, by citing the successive latitudes published for the Royal Observatory of Greenwich in successive years by its own Astronomers Royal, or as follows:- in 1776 51° 28′ 40″·0 in 1834-51° 28′ 39″·0 in 1856 51° 28′ 38″-2 and in 1880 = 51° 28′ 38″1 Here is not only something of change indicated, but it is in the same direction as at the Great Pyramid; viz., a continual decrease in the latitude with the progress of time. While if a testimony be desired that the quantity, or rate, is also nearly the same, I may now refer to the subsequent opposition work of Mr. Flinders Petrie, who yet agrees on this point; and considers that the best of the Greenwich observations show a decrease of latitude amounting to 1"-38 in a century; or in 4000 years very near indeed to the 1 minute of defalcation ascertained by me directly for the Great Pyramid of that precise amount of antiquity. 1 Moreover, he connects this 4000 year effect of 1 minute in latitude with the 5' in azimuth already described, and attributes them both, as a spiral motion of the Earth's Poles relatively to its surface, or the surface as compared with them, to a grand terrestrial mechanical cause, viz., the action of unbalanced ocean currents pressing against the surface crust of the earth. A high class calculation, and with so much more of theory than immediately observable fact in it, that some minds may prefer to depend on geological observations of effects CHAP. V.] C3 GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS. accumulated through out and out longer periods of ages; if the phenomena are really observable, and reasonably connected with the very minute latitude change in question. And this they are, as set forth, since even the 4th edition of this work appeared, in a remarkable little book by a most remarkable man, Mr. A. A. Anderson, a traveller well stricken in years, who has wandered over nearly the whole world—of late, chiefly in Eastern South Africa, but always and everywhere pursuing the traces of what he believed to be his genuine discovery of a new motion of rotation of the earth's crust. A motion with a slowness of many myriads of years to complete one whole revolution, and in a direction at right angles (more probably obliquely) to the daily rapid rotation of the whole earth's mass in 24 hours on its mechanical axis proper. We all know that every part of the earth which is now dry and high above the sea-level (even the Andes Mount- ains themselves) have for untold ages in their past history been at the bottom of equally deep oceans, and had the chief part of their present material laid on them there most equally and uniformly by deposition from water. But what depressed those lands so deeply and for so long, and what subsequently raised them so high, and also for so long; and will it submerge them again, and again raise them up on high, is, as yet, an unsatisfied mystery. (C Volcanic energy, exclaim some persons. But Mr. Ander- son, on the strength of his world-wide observations, says No; for volcanic action is irregular, partial, and local only.” While he shows successfully in his little book, "Terra," and pre-eminently from his experience of Eastern and Tropical South Africa, that the rise of that continent, i.e., the last rise as well as the previous depression, was a slow, gradual, almost uniform change along thousands of miles, like one of Nature's grander and longer secular mechanical laws. And he attributes the whole series of rise, and follow- ing fall, movements with rise again, to his slow revolution of the earth's crust at right angles to the Equator, making almost every place, in the course of immense ages, pass successively through every latitude, and run the gauntlet 64 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. also of the well-known Equatorial protuberance of our globe with immense results. For this peculiarity of figure, a consequence of the diurnal rotation on the Polar axis, combined with the fluidity of the ocean, is perpetually reforming and maintaining itself at such part of the crust only as may then be at or near the Equator; but gradually deleting its traces on the parts which are approaching the Poles; with a power according to geodetic science of making any part of the earth's crust at one time 13 miles nearer to, or further from, the centre than at another. As to how such a slow side-rotation is produced and kept up, whether by Mr. Flinders Petrie's unbalanced action of ocean currents, or otherwise, Mr. Anderson cannot and does not pretend to say. He is an observer and a reasoner on observations only; and has lived and worked through fifty years for little but following up the traces over the earth of this one grand movement: which he delights also to demonstrate, is the only known corrective influence to prevent the dry land of the earth having been long ago washed down into mere prominences of hard and sterile rock, with its softer, richer portions lying inaccessible at the bottom of the deepest seas. Until now, in full faith that the movement is in existence still, Mr. Anderson declares that the North African surface ought to be, and to have been, slowly, through all historic times, passing into diminishing latitude; or nearing the Equator. But so my Playfair circle observations, with Pyramid theory to assist, declare it is doing. What wonder, then, that this fine old hunter, in his last visit to this country (for he has now returned to the Transvaal, in the forlorn hope of trying to recover some portions of his property there from the Boers), kept up an active correspondence with me about the Pyramid testimony for North Africa, to the day of his departure. Thus, however, does it always seem to come about with regard to the Great Pyramid, on John Taylor's lines for investigating it; viz., that the following up of any of its teachings, leads to high and noble views of the kosmos of God; and while agreeing with all the best settled data of modern science, points to some higher questions still, which inevitably lie beyond. CHAP. V.] 65 GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS. True Primeval Astronomical Orientation, as in the Great Pyramid, radically opposed, but in vain, by all early idolatrous structures elsewhere. The Great Pyramid, then, though a primeval monument, did set a clear and recognisable scientific rule in building, by so successfully orienting its sides and passage vertical planes to the cardinal directions of high astronomy. This plan was followed also wherever that Pyramid's example, by overshadowing grandeur, was felt to be com- pulsory; as it evidently was to many other builders on the hill of Jeezeh, and in the adjacent parts more or less of Lower Egypt; but nowhere else. At Thebes, for instance-Thebes, the glory as well as the shame, of Upper Egypt, and far more characteristic of the Pharaonic, medieval, and most wickedly powerful period of the nation-also in Nubia, further away, later still, and more sensually minded, the temples and tombs are put down or founded at every possible azimuth, or towards every quarter of the sky. And none of them. have any astronomical theory of the date of their founda- tion, whereby their positions now might be scientifically tested for general advantage. Those temples and tombs, too, are all of them undoubtedly idolatrous, Egyptologic, and speak lamentably to human theotechnic inventions. In Mesopotamia, again, and the spiritually rebellious region of Babel, its Asiatic Hamite temples, dedicated glaringly both to false gods and the Sabæan hosts of heaven, are not laid out at random. Not in general contempt of, or indifference to, all astronomical orientation, like the lazy Theban temples of Egypt, but in fierce opposition sort of astronomical orientation to the Great Pyramid's example. For while the bases of these Euphratian structures, though rectangular, are very far from square, they are also set forth as to position, with their sides as far as possible from any and every cardinal point; that is, they are set at an angle of 45° therefrom, and are steadily as well as persistently kept thereat from one end of the Inter-amnian country to the other. The Revd. Canon Rawlinson, of Oxford, the Christian. historian of those desperately Pagan countries has, indeed, F 66 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. argued that it was a matter of indifference for the astronomical observations of those Chaldæan buildings whether they were oriented upon, or at 45° away from, the cardinal points. But in that case the astronomical obser- vations made there, must have been of as totally different a character from those of the Great Pyramid, as from those also of any of our modern first class astronomical observa- tories; where the exceedingly true meridian direction to a fraction of a second, in which they observe, is everything. And when we study the Great Pyramid itself in this point of view, important results will be found to follow; adding to its unique prestige and geographical power upon earth, from the new and most remarkable developments which arise precisely out of its true and very North and South, with East and West, bearings; as well as from its regular and simple mathematical figure in its one grand whole. Geographical Aptitudes of the Great Pyramid. With the general's penetrating glance of a Napoleon Buonaparte himself, his Academician savants in Egypt, in 1799, perceived immediately how grand, truthful and effective a trigonometrical surveying signal the pointed shape of the Great Pyramid gratuitously presented them with. And they not only used it for that purpose, as it loomed far and wide over the country, but employed it as a grander order of signal also, to mark the zero meridian of longitude for all Egypt. In coming to this conclusion, the Academicians could hardly but have perceived something of the peculiar position of the Great Pyramid over against, or nearly right upon, the Southern apex of the Delta-shaped land of Lower Egypt, spreading out symmetrically to the N.E. and N.W.; and recognised, that the vertical plane of the Pyramid's passages, when also "produced Northwards, passed along the central axis of that Delta region, up to the Northernmost point of Egypt's Mediterranean coast; forming thereby the whole country's middle and most commanding meridian line. While the North-East and North-West diagonals of the building, "} CHAP. V.] 67 GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS. similarly produced, enclosed the fertile Delta's either side. in a symmetrical and well balanced manner (see Plate II.). But the first very particular publication on this branch of the subject was by Mr. Henry Mitchell, Chief Hydrographer to the United States Coast Survey. That gentleman having been sent, in 1868, to report on the progress of the Suez Canal, was much struck with the regularity of a certain general convex curvature along the whole of Egypt's Delta's Northern coast. To his mind it was a splendid example of a growing and advancing coast-line, developing in successive curves all struck, one after and beyond the other, from a certain central point of physical origination in the interior. And whereabouts exactly, was that physical centre of natural origin and formation? With the curvature of the Northern coast, really that of the Delta land of the Nile, on a good map before him (see, in a very small way, our Fig. 1, Plate II.), Mr. Mitchell sought, with variations of direction and radius carried Southward, until he had got all the prominent coast points to be evenly swept by his arc; and then looking to see where his Southern centre was, found it upon the Great Pyramid. Chorographical Refinements. On coming to details, Mr. Mitchell did indeed allow that his radii were not able to distinguish between the Great Pyramid and any of its near companions on the same hill top. But the Great Pyramid had already settled that differential matter for itself. For while it is absolutely the Northernmost of all the Pyramids of all Egypt (in spite of one apparent, but false exception to be explained further on), it is the only one which comes at all close-and it does come very close indeed, to the Northern cliff of its Jeezeh hill. Almost overhangs it. So that the Great Pyramid looks out from thence Northward, with a solitary, commanding, unim- peded gaze right over the open fan-shaped, fertile and human food-producing land of Lower Egypt. Looks over it, too, from the sectorial land's very "centre of physical F 2 68 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. origin;" or as from the handle of the fan, outward to the far-off, radially curved sea coast. All the other Pyramids of Jeezeh are far back on that hill's table-land, or so far to the south of their Great prototype that they lose that grand view from the front or northern edge of the hill, which the building already there had appropriated to itself. So very close indeed was the Great Pyramid placed to the Northern brink of its hill, that the edges of the cliff might have broken off under the terrible pressure combined with occasional earthquake wave, had not the builders banked up there most firmly the immense mounds of rubbish which came from their work; and which Strabo looked so particularly for 1850 years ago, but could not find. Here they were, however, and still are, utilized in enabling the Great Pyramid to stand on the very utmost Northern verge of its commanding hill. Or in what was 4000 years ago the required latitude of 30° 0′ 0″, as well as over the centre of the agricultural land's physical and radial foundation; and at the same time on the sure and pro- verbially wise foundation of rock, with the corner sockets of its base securely cut therein. Now Lower Egypt being, as already described, of a sector, still more exactly than of a Delta, shape, it must have its centre, not like a circle in the middle of its surface, but at one extreme corner thereof. Whereupon Mr. Mitchell has acutely remarked that the building which stands at, or just raised above, such a sectorial centre, must be at one and the same time both at the border thereof, and yet at its quasi, or practically governing, middle. That is to say, just as was to be that grandly honoured prophetic monument, pure and undefiled in its religious bearing, though in the idolatrous Egyptian land, alluded to by Isaiah (ch. xix.) ; for was it not fore-ordained by the Divine Word to be both " an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar (better translated pyramid") at the border thereof." An apparent me- chanical impossibility, yet realized in the sectorial centre condition of the Great Pyramid; gifted with lasting power enough to become in the latter days, before the consum- mation of the human trial, a most special witness to the << CHAP. V.] 69 GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS. same Lord of all, and to the truth of what He has caused to be written in His Word, as well as to what He hath purposed on mankind from the beginning of former times. Still further Geographical Accomplishments. Nor do the claims on our attention of the position of the Great Pyramid within Egypt itself, end there. For proceeding along the surface of the globe, as now known to all men, due north and due south of the Great Pyramid, it has been found by Mr. William Petrie, that there is more earth and less sea in that meridian, than in any cther meridian all the Equator round. Hence, therefore, the Great Pyramid's meridian is as essentially marked by Nature in a general manner, across the world nearly from Pole to Pole, as a prime meridian for all nations to measure their longitudes from; or for that modern cynosure "the unification of longitude," just as it is more minutely marked by human art within the limits of the Lower Egyptian plain, by the pointed building itself. Again, taking the distribution of land and sea in paral- lels of latitude, there is more land surface in the Great Pyramid's general parallel of 30° than in any other parallel. So that two grand, solid, man-inhabited earth-lines (the one, of most land in any meridian, and the other of most land in any latitude) cross on the Great Pyramid. And yet grand ocean ways lead up to it from both S. East and West. While finally, on carefully summing up the areas of all the dry land habitable by man all the world over, I find that the centre of the whole falls, not as has pleased some persons to assert of late years, on London, but within the Great Pyramid's special territory of Lower Egypt.* (See Fig. 2, of Plate II.). Nor is this all. For as the late Commodore Whiting, U. S. Navy, wrote to me from America, the Great Pyramid's further, and even chief claim in his eyes to attention as a zero of all nations' longitude, is not merely * See my "Equal Surface Projection," published in 1870 by Edmonstone and Douglas. See also the Rev. R. Douglas' "The Two Witnesses," for October, 1887; under title of "The Centre of the Earth's Land Surface." 70 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. * rby that it is itself so eminently set in the midst, or between all the busier and more populous haunts of men, South- East and North-West, India and Britain, on its own side of the earth; but that its nether meridian, or the continua- tion of its Egyptian meridian past the Poles, and round the opposite side of the world, has precisely opposite attributes. So that that nether meridian forms the most suitable possible line of opposite longitude, whereat circum-navigators of the globe may most conveniently change their day of reckoning as they pass it, accordingly as they are proceeding from East to West, or from West to East, because that nether-meridian of the Great Pyramid ranges its whole length from South, to North, Pole (except- ing only for a short distance near Behring's frozen straits) through restless, changing, uninhabited, tossing seas. Realizing, therefore, almost exactly the precise nether- meridian so long desired by that late most eminent geographer, Captain Maury, in his voluminous and world- wide facilitations of the navigation of all nations. Of the Mental Accompaniments of these Several Facts. It is quite needless for the Egyptological objectors to these growing ideas about the Great Pyramid's almost superhuman scientific features and commensurabilities, to go on denying them and railing at me, because, forsooth, the ancient Egyptians, the mere slaves of Pharoah, untravelled natives of their own narrow soil, did not know anything about the general arrangement of earth and sea- surface all the globe over; while they figured the earth in their hieroglyphics as a flat cake of bread; and therefore could not have made the above calculation rightly. All this may of course most freely be granted to them, especially so far as I am concerned, for I have never accused those old profane Egyptians, dark idolaters, with having had anything to do with the design of the Great Pyramid; or with having understood what it meant, or for what purposes it was erected; though they did perform the hodman portion of the labouring work. Neither have I any intention of being concussed into limiting my accounts of what modern mathematical know- ledge of Nature may find by her own processes of measure- CHAP. V.] 71 GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS. ment applied to the still surviving facts of that most ancient building of all the world, and of all time-of limiting them, I say, to merely what modern Egyptologers, from their own most questionable studies among records of idol animal worshippers, may choose to allow that those unhappy peoples did, or much rather did not, know. For from the moment of taking up on rigid trial John Taylor's Biblical line of interpretation, there was no necessity for depending on those miserable comforters again. And if we be further enabled before long to illustrate that the Directors of the building of the Great Pyramid were not natives of Egypt, nor worshippers with them of their false gods, but came into Egypt out of a country having a different latitude and longitude; and went back again to that country of theirs immediately after they had built the Great Pyramid in all its surpassing purity and perfection; and that there, in their own country, they built no second Pyramid,—will not that go far to indicate that, assisted by a higher power, they had been enabled to appreciate of early time, that there was only one proper and fully appropriate place all the wide, and round world over, whereon to found that most deeply significant structure they had received orders to erect on a certain plan, as well as particular spot, viz., the Great Pyramid in, but not of, Egypt, or for the Egyptians. But if the exterior of that earth's-surface central build- ing, though in these last days in which we live almost ruinous under the successive attacks of twenty nations, leads so abundantly, when carefully studied and scientifi- cally measured, even in spite of all those dilapidations, to ennobling views-what may we not expect from the Great Pyramid's better-preserved interior? Pavement and Socket-Floor Levels. }) Let us first, however, wind up this earliest Part or Division of our book with a handy table of some of the principal measures touching the "Geography and Exterior of the Great Pyramid. Commencing with a few words on the two levels for height-reference which are now known to exist. In former editions of this book, I had been under the 72 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. impression, in the absence of all measures referring to this point, that the piece of pavement, 21 inches thick, seen by Colonel Howard Vyse, at the middle only of the Northern base-side of the Great Pyramid, was the same, as to level of its upper surface, as that of which I saw a portion near the N. West corner socket, but found only ten inches thick (see page 137, Vol. II., of "Life and Work at G. P., 1867"). Colonel Vyse's pavement fragment, however, turns out, according to Mr. F. Petrie's absolute measures of height, to be an entirely different affair; and to stand, as to its upper surface, 20 inches higher; and therefore to be at its inward beginning closer in towards the centre of the Pyramid's basal plane, than any line joining two sockets' outer-most corners. In fact, the Vyse-Petrie mere bit of elevated pavement connects itself with that smaller base- side length which we have already shown in Chapter III. has nothing to do with any of the measures, varying among themselves though they do, of the larger base-side length given by the gloriously Biblically-recognised "sockets made to sink of the Divinely commanded building alluded to in Job xxxviii.; and of which the laying out of the measures, was one of the first and noblest proceedings. Hence there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that the Biblically-utterly unrecognised and small platform- like pavement elevated near the middle of the base's Northern side is a reference of comparatively small import- ance, and does not disturb in any degree either the socket- defined base-side length, or the socket floor level. While as for my former bits of pavement at the Pyramid's corners, 20 inches lower in upper surface than the Vyse pavement, they are yet not low enough to show the proper level to be employed with the sacred and scientific theory initiated by John Taylor for the size of the whole building. We have indeed to thank Mr. F. Petrie for emphasizing, that the deeper down is any socket's floor, the further out is it from the centre of the base of the whole Pyramid: indicating the Pyramidal shape duly preserved, in spite of apparent irregularities. Enabling, therefore, the Great Pyramid, with its four corner sockets at different levels and different distances out, to typify different base-side lengths, }} CHAP. V.] 73 GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS. different Sun-distances, and in fact different though closely convergent quantities in Nature. Not one, therefore, of the sockets can be given up, or kept secret and silent, in our present imperfect knowledge of the whole run of the base-sides of the Great Pyramid, still hid from fair and open view over of their surface by huge mounds or rubbish as forbiddingly as when I was there in 1865. But as we have seen already, how base-side length goes with depression of level, and vice versa, and that the floors of the sockets were made and nicely levelled to be stood on by mighty corner stones, the mean level of these floors is the only datum to be employed in this book against the assumed symbolic base-side length of 9131 Pyramid inches. And that mean socket floor level* being 11 inches lower still than the low corner pave- ment I had before assumed, such a correction must now be applied. I find it necessary also, in my former table of the exist- ing masonry courses of the Great Pyramid, now repeated with improvements, to alter their numerals by one; for the following simple reason. Howard Vyse's grand casing- stones, on their elevated platform, stood 59 inches high thereupon, and therefrom at their upper surface. And if that surface were produced level up to corner, there would be a depth under it to my old corner pavement, of 79 inches. Now, that seemed to me, in my Great Pyramid greenness of 23 years ago, so ultra colossal a depth or height for a single thickness of stone-work, that I wrote over against the figures, though with considerable hesita- tion, Courses 1 and 2. But now, with further experience of this extraordinary primeval monument, where the skill and dimensions of the work are more like what, in human educational progress, should characterize the last, rather than the first, days of Adamic nations on earth, I believe that the Inspired ... * The differences of the socket floor levels were given by me in “Life and Work at G. P.," Vol. II., p. 137, from Messrs. Aiton and Inglis' measures confided to me to publish; thus: ... Sockets N. East. S. East. Inches of depression 5.6 19.2 and have been since reported by Mr. Flinders Petrie thus: Inches of depression 5.5 16.9 0.0 S. West. 0.0 N. West. 9.8, mean 8.65 in 1867, 9.8, mean 8.05 in 1883. 74 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Architect would not have quailed before dealing with stone blocks, if necessary, not only of 79 inches thickness, but of 87.1, 99.5, 816 and 914, as each corner basal socket would specially require. And not until those grand corner casing-stones are found and replaced in their sockets, will any one be able to speak with absolute certainty to the very last figure of either base-side length, or level datum plane, or know whether the Pyramidal slope terminated inside the socket hole in casing-stone-like contact with its outer sides, or passed over its outer, upper edge; or, as on Mr. F. Petrie's depreciatory idea, had a free play of four inches more or less. As, therefore, with all the best mensurations of so- called exact practical science in modern times, so there is a final very small fringe of uncertainty with our best Pyramid measures; though the width of that fringe has decreased most remarkably in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and permits such a state- ment as the following to be made now with considerable confidence. Compendium of the principal and leading Measures connected with the Geography and Exterior of the Great Pyramid, as collected in 1877 and 1889 A.D., from the best measures so fur published. Pyr. inches. • Latitude, present 29° 58′ 51″; ancient 30° 0' 0". Longitude=0° 0' 0" of Pyramid; for all human time. Orientation, believed to have been true anciently, but now found to point 5′ 35″ West of North. Elevation of mean socket base above the neighbouring alluvial, but now sand-covered, plain Above the average water level of the wells therein Above the Mediterranean sea-level The lowest subterranean chamber of Great Pyramid above the average water-level of the country; forbid- ding therefore the fancied water well of the Romaus and Dr. Clark ... ... ... ... = ... the elevated Northern pavement... From the mean socket floor base level ... ... ……. ... ... ……… HEIGHT Size of grEAT PYRAMID. Present dilapidated height, vertical, about Ancient vertical height of apex, above mean socket floor Ancient inclined height at middle of sloping sides ; fr.m ••• ... ··· ... A 4 ... * 1500+ 1750 + 2580 + 250 + 5450+ 5813.01 7352.13 7391.55 CHAP. V.] 75 GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS. Ancient corner or arris-line height from mean socket floor level... Ancient whole vertical height of apex above lowest subter- ranean ... ... ... ... ... ... ... BREADTH SIZE OF GREAT PYRAMID. Present ruined base-side breadth of mere core masonry Ancient and present base-side breadth by lines from the corner sockets Ancient and present base diagonals by socket measures Sum of the two socket base diagonals Present platform of dilapidation on top of Great Pyramid; flat and level, except in so far as it has 4 or 5 large squared and cemented stones upon it, relics of two higher courses of masonry once existing there, breadth ... ... ... ... ... ... ... The same increased by the breadth of the now vanished ··· ••• ... casing-stones Part pavements in front of and round about the base of Great Pyramid; breadth of, variously ... * ... SHAPE AND MATERIAL. Ancient angle of rise of the casing-stones, and the whole flanks of the Great Pyramid when measured in verti- cal right plane at the side Ancient angle of rise of the whole Great Pyramid, when measured at the corners, or arris lines Ancient angle of Great Pyramid at summit, sideways Ancient angle of Great Pyramid at summit, diagonally Courses of masonry, both of internal core, and outside casing-stones, are all horizontal. ... …… ... ... ... Component stones of internal core, are always, except for any structural detail, rectangular. Casing-stones sloped outside have their lower angle And their upper angle Casing-stones material is a compact white lime-stone from the Mokattam mountain quarries on the East, or Arabian side, of the Nile, with so low a density as 0.367 (earth's mean density = 1). General substance of all the internal core masonry is a yellower, heavier lime-stone, with nummulite and other fossils imbedded, density = 0·412. Supposed to have been derived partly from the levellings and tomb excava- tions of the Pyramid's own hill; and partly from hills on the Arabian side of the river. ... ... ... ·· ••• Granite linings of some inside chambers, supposed to have been brought from Syene. Number of sides of the whole building, including the square base as one, viz., 4 triangular and 1 square Number of corners of the whole building, or 4 on the ground below, and 1 anciently aloft ·· ... ... ... ... = Pyr. inches. 8687.87 7015 ± = 8950+ 9131 05 12,913 26 25,827 ± 400+ 580± 560± = 51 51 143 41 59 18.7 76 17 31.4 96 1 22.6 51 51 + +1+1 =128 9 + 10 5 5 76 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. MASONRY COURSES. These courses of squared and cemented blocks of lime-stone in horizontal sheets, one above the other, continually diminishing in horizontal length and breadth, but vary- ing much in thickness, form the mass of the building of the Great Pyramid. The first or lowest course has preserved some of the outside casing-stones belonging to it near the middle of the North side where it is only 59 inches thick, and not the full 90 inches it is believed to have been at the corner sockets; because at the sides the elevated pavement comes in and deprives it of 31 inches of its proper height. MASONRY COURSES, Approximately. Number of Masonry Courses in ascending from mean Socket Flour. GC Ma 1234 6747 a 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Thickness of each Course in Pyramid Inches approxi- mately. 90 56 48 40 exa** ***** ***** 40 38 39 38 36 34 33 30 30 28 30 28 26 32 38 Whole Height from mean Socket Floor Number of Masonry Courses in ascending from mean Socket Floor. 146 194 234 0 20 90 21 22232 24 274 25 312 26 351 27 389 28 425 29 ***** AC*** **EXO 30 459 492 522 552 33 580 34 32 610 35 638 36 664 696 38 734 39 Pyramid Inches approxi- Thickness of each Course in mately. 2*335 24 38 26 28 31 30 Whole Height from mean Socket Floor. 758 40 781 41 816 42 849 43 880 44 918 944 46 972 1003 1033 39 38 34 28 1115 24 in ascending from mean Number of Masonry Courses Socket Floor. 1139 26 1059 28 1087 51 49509 ZENOS EX 1213 47 48 50 52 24 1163 54 53 50 41 1254 56 55 1293 57 1331 58 1365 59 Pyramid Inches approxi- Thickness of each Course in mately. 32 32 28 32 42 ***** **** 37 28 35 36 30 28 30 26 27 24 26 22 26 27 30 ĥ Whole Height from mean Socket Floor. 1397 1429 1457 1489 1531 1568 1596 1631 1667 1697 1725 1755 1781 1808 1832 1858 1880 1906 1933 1963 CHAP. V.] 77 GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS Number of Masonry Courses in ascending from mean Socket Floor. 60 61 C**** ***28 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 2-6 6 71 72 73 74 Perce 80*** ***** 87*** 75 76 77 78 79 82 85 86 87 89 90 92 93 94 Thickness of each Course in Pyramid Inches approxi- mately. 22228 2 26 26 26 26 34 33 31 ***** ***** 22222 33*** *32*& 26 2123 28 Whole Height from mean Socket Floor. 26 1991 2017 2043 2069 2097 Number of Masonry Courses in ascending from mean Socket Floor. 2535 115 24 2559 116 24 2583 117 83 26 2609 118 84 26 2635 119 8:28 28 2275 105 2303 106 2330 107 2356 108 2387 109 100 2149 101 2183 102 2216 103 2247 104 28 2415 110 26 2441 111 24 2465 112 24 2489 113 24 2513 114 25 2660 120 25 2685 121 24 2709 122 24 2733 123 25 2758 124 36 2794 125 33 2827 126 2858 127 2886 128 28 26 2912 129 Thickness of each Course in Pyramia Inches approxi- mately. 24 41 37 25 2937 130 24 2961 2985 131 132 3026 133 3063 134 34 32 30 3097 135 3129 136 3159 137 28 3187 138 27 3214 139 88888 22*2* ***** ****♫ 24 24 Whole Height from mean Socket Floor. 27 3241 140 26 3267 141 25 3292 142 29 3321 143 25 3346 144 Number of Masonry Courses in ascending from mean Socket Floor. 3370 145 3394 146 3418 147 23 3441 148 23 3464 149 24 23 35 23 3487 150 25 3512 151 3535 152 3570 153 3601 154 29 28 26 26 24 24 23 23 23 23 3630 155 3658 156 3684 157 3710 158 3734 159 3758 160 3781 161 3804 162 3827 163 3850 164 Thickness of each Course in Pyramid Inches approxi- mately. ***** 22 27 25 23 22 22 25 23 25 ** 22222 72222 25 28 24 26 26 25 22 21 22222 222** 21 21 21 21 Whole Height from mean Socket Floor. 3877 3902 3925 3947 3969 23 25 3991 4016 4039 4064 4089 4111 4133 4155 4177 4205 4232 4256 4278 4300 4321 4347 4373 4398 4420 4441 4462 4483 4504 4525 4547 21 4568 21 4589 24 4613 4636 4661 1 78 [PART I. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Number of Masonry Courses in ascending from mean Socket Floor. 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 Thickness of each Course in Pyramid Inches approxi- mately. 22222 21 21 20 22222 22222 21 21 4788 185 20 4808 186 4829 187 21 4850 188 20 4870 189 Whole Height from mean Socket Floor. f ... Number of Masonry Courses in ascending from mean Socket Floor. 4683 180 4705 181 4726 182 4747 183 4767 184 21 4891 190 20 4911 191 20 4931 192 21 4952 193 20 4972 194 ... Pyramid Inches approxi- Thickness of each Course in mately. ... 26 25 23 24 22 ... 22222 22222 21 == 20 21 21 21 21 20 Whole Height from mean Socket Floor. AREA, WEIGHT, &c., Ancient area of socket-marked square base of Great ... 21 5300 ... ... Pyramid Ancient area of generally flattened rock, or pavement work surrounding the Great Pyramid and including its own base, but not yet identified at more than two or three points, and there variously The whole building, excepting the few and small included hollow chambers, and excepting also some small portions of the live rock of the hill, which have been trimmed off conformably with the nearest masonry courses and utilised as its substance without further labour, consists of solid masonry, of which the whole Great Pyramid may contain, in solid Pyramid cubits And in Pyramid tons weight ... 4998 195 5023 196 5046 197 5070 198 5092 199 ... 5113 200 5134 201 5154 202 5175 203 5196 204 5217 205 5238 206 5259 207 5279 208 209 210 in ascending from mean Number of Masonry Courses Socket Floor. ... .. ... .. ... ··· Pyramid Inches approxi. Thickness of each Course in mately. ... UNITS OF MEASURE REFERRED TO. 1.001 British inch. { 2222 23 ? 22 ? 22 ? 50 ? 75 ? 100 ? ... 24 22 22 22 22 22 21 19 25 ? Stan Whole Height from mean Socket Floor. 5322 5346 5368 5390 5412 25.025 British inches. 25.000 Pyramid inches. 5434 5456 5477 5496 5813 Pyr. acres. 13.340 1 Pyramid inch 1 Pyramil cubit 1 Pyramid acre 0.9992 British acre. 1 Pyramid ton 1-1499 British avoirdupois ton. See further the Plates III. to VIII. and XX. to XXII. inclusive. 10,340,000 5,274,000 15 + PART II. HISTORY, AND INTERIOR, OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. CHAPTERS VI. To X. 66 WHO HATII MEASURED THE WATERS IN THE HOLLOW OF HIS HAND, AND METED OUT HEAVEN WITH THE SPAN, AND COMPREHENDED THE DUST OF THE EARTII IN A MEASURE, AND WEIGHED THE MOUNTAINS IN SCALES, AND THE HILLS IN A BALANCE? (C WHO HATII DIRECTED THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD, OR BEING HIS COUNSELLOR HATH TAUGHT HIM?"—ISAIAH XL., 12, 13. CHAP. VI.] 81 AN ENTRY MADE. CHAPTER VI. AN ENTRY MADE. First in Classic Times. TH HERE is little enough of hollow interior to enter into, in any of the Egyptian Pyramids, as they are generally all but solid masses of masonry. And yet what very little there is, will be found quite characteristic enough to raise up a most radical distinction of kind, as well as degree, between the Great Pyramid and every other monument, large or small, Pyramidal or otherwise, in all the continent of Africa and the broader extent of Asia as well. What the Ancients knew about the Interior of the Great Pyramid. was The progress of profane historical knowledge of outside men, with regard to what constituted the small hollow interior of the Great Pyramid, from the earliest times after the very building operation itself had ceased (say 2150 years B.C.), down to later Greek and Roman eras, both slow and peculiar. Had we now before us, in one meridianal section of the monument, all that such very ancient knowledge had arrived at, the tale would amount to little more than this-that when the Great Pyramid stood on the Jeezeh hill in the primeval age of the world in white masonry, unassailed; a simple, apparently solid, crystalline shape, with the secret of its inner nature untouched; clothed too, complete on every side, with its bevelled sheet of polished casing-stones, the whole structure rising from a duly levelled area of also white rock-surface G 82 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. in four grand triangular flanks up to a single pointed summit, that then it contained within, or beneath its foot (trending down from the north, and entering at a point. about 58 feet above the levelled ground, near the middle of that northern side) merely an inclined descending passage of very small bore, leading to a sort of subterranean, excavated chamber in the rock, about 100 feet vertically under the centre of the base of the whole built monu- ment. G This one subterranean chamber did really exist, in so far as it had been begun to be carved out, deep in the heart of the rock, with admirable skill. For the workmen, having cut their sloping way down to the necessary depth by the passage, commenced with the chamber's ceiling, making it exquisitely smooth, and on so large a scale as 46 feet long by 28 broad. Then sinking down the walls from its edges in vertical planes, there was every promise of their having presently, at that notable 100-foot depth inside, or rather underneath the surface of the otherwise solid limestone mountain, a rectangular hollow space, or chamber, whose walls, ceiling, and floor should all be perfect, pattern planes. But when the said men, the original workers, it must be presumed, had cut downwards from the ceiling to a depth of about 4 feet at the west end, and 13 feet at the east end, they stopped in the very midst of their occupation. A small, very small bored passage was pushed on into the rock merely a few feet further towards the south, and then that was also left unfinished; a similar abortive attempt was likewise made downwards, but with the only result, that the whole floor, from one end of the chamber to the other, was left a lamentable scene of holes, rocks, and up-and- down, fragmentary confusion, "the stones of darkness and the shadow of death." (See Plate VI. and Plate IX.) This one item, moreover, of a subterranean, unfinished chamber, with a sloping passage of approach from above, there is good reason for believing, was all that the native and profane Pharaonic Egyptians themselves knew of, from within a generation after the Great Pyramid had been built, to the latest times of their nation; excepting only certain comparatively modern men of a fanatic invading army, who broke into the building, probably near the CHAP. VI.] 83 AN ENTRY MADE. ། epoch of Judah's Babylonian captivity, so late as 600 B.C.; and for them, see further on to our Part IV. That the ancient, idolatrous Egyptians themselves, as a people (probably from 2100 B.C. down to their most theo- technic Theban kingdom about 1700 B.C.; thence to their conquest while still worshipping bulls, goats, cats and crocodiles by Persian Cambyses in 525 B.C.; then con- quered again, when worshipping onions, dogs, and wolves as well, by Grecian Alexander in 338 B.C.; and then by Julius Cæsar, when no better, in 48 B.C.), that they all knew thus much, we may readily allow, because they could hardly have known less of the interior than their latest conquerors, the Romans. And there is sufficient proof in the pages of Strabo, as explained by Mr. F. Petrie, that the upper end of the entrance passage was closed by no more than a door. A heavy stone door certainly, but working on pivots, and quite possible to be opened on occasions, as well as closed. There appears also, as it is asserted by modern Egyptolo- gists, some probability that small Pyramids with this single characteristic-viz., a descending entrance-passage and subterranean, or tombic and sepulchral, chamber—were indigenous in Egypt before the erection of the Great Pyramid. In such case, therefore, that building may have been begun so far, in seeming deference to preceding and by no means secret, native ideas about burial; though as fact-proved now, the Great Monument did not care to complete them; nor to carry out the either intended, or pretended, sepulchral chamber to such a condition of floor state, that any funeral sarcophagus could have been decently, and in order, established there; while no remains of any kind of coffin have ever been reported to have been found either in that chamber or the passage leading to it. In the undoubtedly subsequent second and third Jeezeh Pyramids, on the contrary, their subterranean rooms were finished, floors and all; and sarcophagi were introduced. Their architects, moreover, attempted to make those chambers notably object-worthy. But it was only with useless, confusing complication, without any very sensible. purpose; unless when it was to allow a second king to make himself a burial-chamber in the Pyramid cellar already G 2 84 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. occupied by a predecessor; and then it was bad. Gradually therefore, as the researches of Colonel Howard-Vyse have shown, on the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth Jeezeh Pyramids (all these being, moreover, very gmall ones: see Plate IV.), the native Egyptians dropped nearly everything else that they had been exercised on, or had been allowed to behold, at the building of the Great Monument, except the one single, descending and generally sloping passage, with an unfinished subterranean chamber at its farther end. Such a passage and chamber, but well-finished, the primitive Egyptians, or those of the Old Empire," always made under their own little Pyramids; used them distinctly for burial purposes; and that use of them and nothing but it, they kept to, so long as they practised their petty, and too often perishable, pyramid-building at all (down to, perhaps 1800 B.C.). (See Plate V.) In short, all the idolatrous, and subsequently the classic, nations of old (say, from 1800 B.C. down to even 300 A.D.) knew nothing whatever about the now known real interior, of the Great Pyramid's scientific and, as we shall venture also to call it, for far other than mere science reasons alone, sacred, design; and which interior lies altogether above, and in quite a different direction from, the un- important and unfinished subterranean chamber which profane eyes might regard without harm and did regard without profit, so far as is known, to any living soul. Between the Classic and the Arabian Days. After the Classic, came very dark, ages; and though a revived and considerably altered school of Greek learning did flourish for a while at Alexandria, no additional knowledge about the interior of the Great Pyramid was gained there. But, in fact, neither the aesthetics and philosophy of Greece, nor the legality and imperial rule of Rome, as the final outcome of their long civilizations, could excuse before God any longer men's continued adherence to their older idolatries; while the Great Pyramid's unadorned yet truthful sides stood out always CHAP. VI.] 85 AN ENTRY MADE. against, and were an aversion to, idolaters of every kind, whether learned or unlearned. The Christian religion too, though it early appeared in Egypt, was soon largely perverted there by the pagan and mythologic tendencies around. It had, also, in those days its own peculiar struggles, persecutions, dangers to pass through; its freethinkers, moreover, to resist, as in the case of Proclus, in or about 450 A.D. He, though an apostate from the true faith, and exceedingly bitter against it, witness his very rationalistic book on the eternity of the earth and Nature, entitled most malignantly, "Eighteen Arguments against the Christians," this same Proclus has been recently brought up with honour by a Cambridge graduate in a London journal, as a chief authority on the Great Pyramid; and specially for establishing that it was built by the idolatrous King Cheops for promoting astro- logical speculations about his own wretched life. But there is nothing to show that Proclus had any real acquaintance with the building itself. He may have picked up from the peasants around some of the folk-lore tales, such as always grow with time about any giant edifice of the past: and then, being an astrologer himself, he claimed King Cheops, of the mighty Pyramid, as devoted to the same vanity. But he is so little of an authority to be followed, that Gibbon wrote of Proclus,- "his life exhibits a deplorable picture of the second child- hood of human reason. S Mediaval Arabians take their turn. Meanwhile poor, dear, Christianity, though it overcame its first opponents, and flourished for a while in the Egyptian land, yet in its prosperity there became utterly adulterated; and it did not succeed in either reforming Cæsar, or governing the nation; except in so far as men had already begun to mould and hypocritically pervert it to their own political purposes on a large scale, in almost mockery of its Gospel of salvation to each individual, poor and contrite soul. Again, too, had the theotechnic arts of the old Egyptians so heinously over- laid the spiritual purity of the worship of the one God, 86 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. that so-called Christian churches were filled with figures and pictures of men deified by men themselves. Where- fore the cup of Divine wrath was found filled to the brim by the time that six centuries after Christ had come and gone; when another bottomless pit (Rev. ix., 2-11) of infinitely greater significance than the subterranean, floorless chamber under the Great Pyramid, was opened, "and there came a smoke out of that pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit" (Rev. ix., 2). << And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth,-in shape like unto horses prepared for battle; their faces were as the faces of men, and their teeth like the teeth of lions, and their King was the angel of the bottomless pit." No king, therefore, of the ordinary sort, or military- heroic type governed them, but a religious teacher of a new order, though it might be a wrong and perverse one; and teaching more by slaughtering with the sword than convincing by loving and persuasive speech. So too it was, that Mohammed's successor, with the Saracen horsemen behind him, soon after 622 A.D. swept over the Egyptian country, from Alexandria in the North to Syene in the South, in the strength of the Shem descended war-cry of One God. Slaying whoever they found, whether of old mythologists, or debased Christians, who still worshipped "devils and idols of gold and silver and brass and wood and stone, which can neither see nor hear nor walk” (Rev. ix., 20). Then was lost the little of what was once known by ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt too, of the interior, and even the mode of limited entrance (by the stone door, at the beginning of the entrance passage) into the unfinished sub- terranean chamber of the Great Pyramid. That mighty building was therefore left to itself, in the desert, apart from man; a gigantic mass, a "terrible crystal" of a former unknown time. But the Saracenic thunderstorm of Divine and long fore- ordained vengeance passed away at last; its days of butchery were shortened by Divine mercy; the Scorpion warriors with the horse-tail standards over their scimitar- armed ranks, having put down all apparent opposition, or CHAP. VI.] AN ENTRY MADE. 87 performed their ordained parts in an idol-worshipping Hamite region, began to turn towards arts of peace and the sweet enjoyment of their war-acquired wealth. Where- fore presently civilized human history reopened under their altered rule, for an advancing age, with a new people in power, and new ideas dominant. How new they were, in Egypt more especially, must appear from this, that the fiercest discussions concerned now little more than the force of the simple name of the One God, and the virtue of praying five times a day, looking towards Mecca—a semi-spiritualized state of society in which a conquering, worldly-minded hero like Alexander the Great, would have found himself out of place indeed. The religious successors of Mohammed, the Caliphs of Bagdad, were now the chief potentates of the world, the most civilized, most scientific, most literary, too; and were daily becoming more so. Thus at last, in 820 A.D., appeared the Caliph Al Mamoun, with an inquiring turn of mind, like his father Haroun Al Raschid, of the "Arabian Nights," but attending to some higher things— (indeed he was said by Gibbon to have been a prince of rare learning, "continually exhorting his subjects," in excelsior vein, “assiduously to peruse instructive writings; and who not only commanded the volumes of Grecian sages to be translated into Arabic, but could assist with plea- sure and modesty at the assemblies and disputations of the learned'). When, therefore, this rare genius of his day, coming down from Bagdad to El Fostat, an earlier Cairo, and in sight of the Great Pyramid just across the flood of Nile, proposed to enter that monument, A.D. 820, and behold the riches reported to be heaped up in its interior, there seems to have survived only a very indistinct rumour to guide him towards trying the northern, rather than any other, side of the monument. Caliph Al Mamoun attacks the Northern Flank of the Great Pyramid. He did so, and directed his Mohammedan workmen to begin some thirty feet above the ground and at the middle of the northern side; precisely, says Sir Gardner 88 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Wilkinson, as the founders of the Great Pyramid had fore- seen, when they placed the entrance, not in the central vertical of that side, but twenty-four feet away to the east, as well as higher still than the Caliph thought possible above the ground level. Hard labour, therefore, was it to these masons, quarrying with the rude instruments of that barbarous time, into stone-work as solid almost as the side of a natural hill. They soon, indeed, began to cry out, "Open that won- derful Pyramid! It could not possibly be done!" But the Caliph only replied, "I will have it most certainly done." So his followers perforce had to quarry on un- ceasingly by night and by day. Weeks after weeks, and months too, were consumed in these toilsome exertions The progress, however, though slow, was so persevering that they had penetrated at length to no less than one hundred feet inwards from the entrance. But by that time becoming thoroughly exhausted, and beginning again to despair of the hard and hitherto fruitless labour, some of them ventured to remember and repeat, too, certain improving tales of an old king, who had found, on making the calculation, that all the wealth of Egypt in his time would not enable him to destroy one of the Pyramids. These murmuring disciples of the Arabian prophet were thus almost becoming openly rebellious, when one day, in the midst of their various counsel, they heard a great stone evidently fall in some hollow space within no more than a few feet on one side of them! In the fall of that particular stone, there almost seems to have been an accident that was more than an accident. Energetically, of course, they instantly pushed on in the direction of that startling noise; levers, hammers, and fire, being employed again and again, until, breaking suddenly through a wall surface, they burst into the sloping down, hollow way, "exceeding dark, dreadful to look at, and difficult to pass," they said at first, where the sound had occurred. It was the same hollow way, or properly the Pyramid's inclined and descending entrance-passage, where the Romans of old, and if they, also Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians, must have passed up and down CHAP. VI.] 89 AN ENTRY MADE. 4 in their occasional visits to the useless, barren, sub- terranean chamber and its unfinished, unquarried-out, floor. Tame and simple used that entrance-passage, with its upper revolving door of stone, to appear to those ancients who entered it in that way. But now it not only stood before another race, and another religion, but with something that the others never saw, viz., its chief leading secret, for the first time since the foundation of the building, nakedly exposed and exhibiting the beginning of an internal arrangement in the Great Pyramid which is not only unknown in any and every other Pyramid in Egypt; but which the architect here, carefully finished, scrupulously perfected, and then most remarkably sealed up before he left the building; itself to fulfil, by its time- resisting power alone, its prophetic destination at the end of its appointed thousands of years. A large angular- fitting stone that had made for ages, with its lower side, a smooth portion of the inclined and narrow ceiling of the entrance passage, quite undistinguishable from any other part of the whole of its line, had now dropped on to the floor before their eyes; and revealed that there was just behind it, or at and in that point of the ceiling which it had covered, the end of another passage, clearly ascend- ing therefrom and proceeding towards the south, out of this also southward going but descending one! (See Plate IX.) That ascending passage, however, was still closed a little further up, by an adamantine portcullis, or rather stopper, formed by a series of huge granite plugs of square wedge- like shape slided down, and then jammed in immovably, from above. To break them in pieces within the confined entrance-passage space, and pull out the fragments there, was entirely out of the question; so the grim crew of Saracen Mussulmans broke a path sideways or round about to the west through the softer, ordinary, lime-stone masonry, and thence up again (by a huge chasm still to be seen, and indeed still used by all would-be entrants into the further interior) to their newly discovered ascending passage, at a point past the terrific hardness of its lower granite obstruction. They did up there, or at an elevation above, and a 90. [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. position beyond the portcullis, find the passage-way still impeded, though the filling material at that part was only lime-stone; so, making themselves a very great hole in the masonry along the western side, they there wielded their tools with energy on the long fair blocks as they presented themselves to their view. But as fast as they broke up and pulled out the pieces of one of the blocks in this strange ascending passage, other blocks above it, also of a bore just to fill its full dimensions, slided down from above, and still what should be the passage for human locomotion was solid stone filling. No help, however, for the work- inen. The Commander of the Faithful is present, and insists that, whatever the number of stone plugs still to come down from the mysterious reservoir, his men shall hammer and hammer them, one after the other, and bit by bit to little pieces at the only opening where they can get at them, until they shall at last come to the end of all. So the people tire, but the work goes on; and at last, yes! at last! the ascending passage, beginning just above the granite portcullis, and leading thence upward and to the south, is announced to be free from obstruction and ready for essay. Then, by Allah, they shouted, the treasures of the Great Pyramid, sealed up from the fabulous times of the mighty Ibn Salhouk before the Deluge, and undese- crated by mortal eye during all the intervening thousands of years, lay full in their grasp before them. His party storms the Grand Gallery and King's Chamber. p On they rushed, that bearded crew, thirsting for the promised wealth. Up no less than 110 feet of the steep incline, crouched hands and knees and chin together, through a passage of royally polished white lime-stone, but only 47 inches in height and 41 in breadth, they had painfully to crawl, with their torches burning low. Then suddenly they emerge into a long tall gallery, of seven times the passage height, but all black as night and in a death-like calm (see Plate XIII.); its floor still ascending at the strange steep angle, and leading them away farther and still more far into the very inmost heart of darkness CHAP. VI.] 91 AN ENTRY MADE. of this imprisoning mountain of stone. In front of them, at first entering into this part of the now termed “ Grand Gallery," and on the level, see another low passage; on their right hand (see Plates IX. and XII) a black, ominous-looking well's mouth, more than 140 feet deep, and not reaching water, but only lower darkness, even then; while onwards and above them, a continuation of the glorious gallery or upward rising hall of seven times, leading them on, as they expected, to the possession of all the treasures of the great ones of antediluvian days. Narrow, certainly, was the way-only 6 feet broad any- where, and contracted to 3 feet at the floor-but 28 feet high, or almost above the power of their smoky lights to illuminate; and of polished, glistering, marble-like, cyclo- pean stone throughout. (See Plate XIII.) K That must surely, thought they, be the high road to fortune and wealth. Up and up its long-ascending floor- line, therefore, ascending at an angle of 26°, these deter- mined marauders, with their lurid fire lights, had to push their dangerous and slippery way for 150 feet of distance more; then an obstructing three-foot step to climb over (what could the architect have meant by making a step so tall as that?); next a low doorway to bow their heads most humbly beneath (see Plates XIV. and XVI.); then a hanging portcullis to pass, almost to creep, under, most submissively; then, after a short respite, another low door- way, in awful blocks of frowning red granite both on either side, and above and below. But after that, they leaped without further let or hindrance at once into the grand chamber, which was, and is still, the conclusion of every- thing forming the Great Pyramid's interior; the chamber to which, and for which, and toward which, according to every subsequent writer (for no older ones knew any fragment of a thing about it), in whatever other theoretical point he may differ from his modern fellows, the whole Great Pyramid was originally built. (See Plate XVII.) G And what find they there, those maddened Muslim in Caliph Al Mamoun's royal train? A right noble apartment, now called the King's Chamber, roughly 34 feet long, 17 broad, and 19 high, of polished red granite throughout, both walls, floor, and ceiling; in blocks squared and true, 92 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. and put together with such exquisite skill that no autocrat Emperor of recent times could desire anything more solidly noble and at the same time beautifully refined. Ay, ay, no doubt a well-built room, and a handsome one too; but what does it contain? Where is the treasure? The treasure? yes, indeed, where are the promised silver and gold, the jewels and the arms? The plundering fanatics look wildly around them, but can see nothing, not a single dirhem anywhere. They trim their torches, and carry them again and again to every part of that red- walled, flinty hall, but without any better success. Nought but pure, polished red granite, in mighty majesty, looks calmly upon them from every side. The room is clean, garnished too, as it were; and, according to the ideas of its founders, complete and perfectly ready for its intended visitors, so long ago prepared for, but not arrived yet; for the gross minds who occupy it now, find it all barren; and declare that there is nothing whatever of value there, in the whole extent of the apartment from one end to another; nothing except, an empty stone chest without a lid. Disappointment of all concerned in the violence. The Caliph Al Mamoun was thunderstruck. He had arrived at the very ultimate part of the interior of the Great Pyramid he had so long desired to take possession of; and had now, on at last carrying it by storm, found absolutely nothing that he could make any use of, or saw the smallest value in. Wherefore being signally defeated, though a Commander of the Faithful, his faithless people began plotting against him. But Al Mamoun was a Caliph of the able day of Eastern rulers for managing mankind; so he had a large sum of money secretly brought from his treasury, and buried by night in a certain spot near the end of his own quarried entrance-hole. Next day he caused the men to dig pre- cisely there, and behold! although they were only digging in the Pyramid masonry just as they had been doing so many previous days, yet on this day they found a treasure of gold; "and the Caliph ordered it to be counted, and lo! it amounted to the exact expense that had been incurred CHAP. VI.] AN ENTRY MADE. 93 ,, in the works, neither more nor less. And the Caliph said he could not understand how the kings of the Pyramid of old, could have known exactly how much money he would have expended in his undertaking; and he was lost in surprise.' But as the workmen got paid for their labour, and cared not whose gold they were paid with so long as they did get their wage, they ceased their complaints, and dispersed; while as for the Caliph, he returned to the city, El Fostat, so notably subdued, that both the Grand Gallery, the King's Chamber, and the "stone chest without a lid were troubled by him no more. "" The way of approach, indeed, once opened, though never again traversed, by the Caliph Al Mamoun (as he pre- sently left Egypt for his more imperial residence in Bagdad, and ended his days there in 842 A.D., about forty years before the time of our Alfred the Great), that way into the Great Pyramid then remained free to all; and "men did occasionally enter it," says one of the honestest chroniclers of that period, " for many years, and descended by the slippery passage which is in it"; but with no other alleged result, to all those benighted followers of a false and contemously anti-Christian, prophet, than this, "that some of them came out safe, and others died." 91 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. CHAPTER VII. HISTORY AND RESEARCH CONTINUED. From Moslem to our Own Days. FR ROM Caliph Al Mamoun's, to our own time, is more than 1,000 years; in itself no inconsiderable portion of all intellectual human history on this globe. And if the Arabo-Egyptians had continued through all that immense interval, just as practically curious and wilfully destructive as in and about 820 A.D. in the service of their then more peaceful than warlike rulers, what would have been left to these times of the primeval monument in spite of its grandeur? And especially what would have remained of its one, contained, hard, but brittle, coffer, i.e., the so-described empty stone chest without a lid? But utter, complete destruction of that heir-loom of the ages was not to be. The few golden days of the son of Haroun Al Raschid soon passed away; the untoward findings of that monarch were not a little sedative in Pyramid research to his subjects; and before the year A.D. 868 had come and gone, all Egyptians had far different matters to attend to and suffer under, than to push on with more blundering and smashing archæological explorations. And yet it was out of ancient times that their newly commencing troubles came: for the day of the Lord's controversy with the giant idols of the land of Ham, still perverting more or less the mind of the inhabitants, and causing them, Mohammedans though they were, to keep old Egyptian festivals, was not ended. And that day was to be one, in its terrors of Divine vengeance, CHAP. VII.] 95 RESEARCH CONTINUED. "When the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it; When the Egyptians shall fight, every one against his brother, And every one against his neighbour; City against city, and kingdom against kingdom, And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof. And I will destroy the covenant thereof, And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel Lord, And a fierce king shall rule over them, Saith the Lord of Hosts." (Isaiah xix.) "And it shall be the basest of the kingdoms, Neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations" (Ezekiel xxix. 15.) These prophecies had been uttered from 1400 to 1500 years previously, or in 650 and 750 B.C.; and this is how they were eventually fulfilled. Egypt has to accomplish its Destinies. In 868 A.D. the son of a slave, named Tooloon, was appointed by the Caliph of Bagdad viceroy over Egypt; but presently rebelling against his master, made himself ruler over the land. Continued wars and troubles ensued to the inhabitants up to his death in the midst of them. Meanwhile the solitude and silence of the desert had once more surrounded the Great Pyramid; and lent it that pro- tection, which man would not, and then could not, give, to enable it to go on preserving its message for the distant posterity it had been appointed to. Tooloon's son, who succeeded him, had similar wars throughout his short reign, until he was put to death by the women of his own household. The next successor came to a similar violent end, and the next, and the next, by name Haroon; but with the addition of seeing before he died, in the year 900 A.D., according to the chroniclers, "a great tempest and earthquake" desolate the country. Haroon reigned, say these authorities, upwards of eight years, but gave himself up to pleasure, and was put to death by his uncles; one of whom, Sheyban, then usurped the government. The Bagdad caliph thereupon invaded the country; Sheyban went forth to meet him, but his troops deserted; the city of El Fostat, in sight of the 96 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Great Pyramid, was taken and burnt, and the women reduced to slavery, A.D. 905. From this time to 970 A.D., when El Kahireh, or Cairo, was founded by Gohar, close to the north of the former city El Fostat,-anarchy, bloodshed, rival, and short-lived rulers, invasions, desolations, slaughters, and battles, form the record of almost every year; culminating in 1010 A.D., in the also short-lived but ultra-violent time of El Hakim; who, in addition to all the mere cruelties of his pre- decessors, made the people pay him divine honours, and altered his name from signifying " Governing by command of God," into "Governing by his own command." But ten slaves, bribed by 500 denars each, finished the wretch's career, one midnight, when he, who had thrown off alle- giance to God, was engaged on the hills to the south-east of Cairo in making strange cabalistic sacrifices; to Saturn, say some; to Satan, however, say others; and they further claim him as still the special prophet of the devil- worshippers of Mount Lebanon, the Druses; who, more- over, expect him to come supernaturally among them once again, and now very soon; as a sort of miraculous incar- nation of the evil one. A name. Desolating wars then followed between the Negroes and the Saracens, each of them in turn overrunning Egypt, and butchering after their own fashion; battles almost every year, and in 1070 A.D., in the time of the Cairo ruler, El Mustansir, came the dreadful famine still called by his For seven successive years the inundations of the Nile failed; the country produced no corn, and foreign armies prevented its importation from abroad. The wretched people resorted to cannibalism; and, as related by the Arab historian El Makreezee, organised bands kidnapped unwary passengers in the almost deserted, but excessively narrow, streets, catching their prey principally by means of ropes armed with hooks, and let down from the overhanging lattice windows so common still in Cairo. A pestilence followed the famine, and an invading army the pestilence. So continues the Arab-age history of Egypt up to the one brighter and better reign of Saladin of the Crusades, from 1117 A.D. to 1193 A.D.; and then the country is CHAP. VII.] 97 RESEARCH CONTINUED. plunged into a night of internecine wars and misfortunes again. In 1301 A.D., during the reign of En Nasir, as great a persecutor of Christians as El Hakim himself, comes the record of another earthquake, so severe, that it is said to have nearly ruined Cairo, giving it the appearance of a city demolished by a siege." And under this visitation it most probably was, that the final and complete shaking down of the remaining fragments of the already half- plundered casing stones of the Great Pyramid took place, and formed the chief mass of those hills of rubbish which we now find on each of the four base sides of the monu- ment. There they cover up and preserve to future ages, perhaps on every flank of the building, important proofs of its ancient, exterior and structural architecture, such as Colonel Vyse did discover a portion of, when he cut into the covering of the northern side, the only one which has been actually uncovered, through even a few feet, yet. (( The Acme of the Burden of Egypt. One woe is past, and there come two more woes here- after, says St. John (Rev. ix.); for this was the time when the four angels of the Euphrates were to be loosed at last, with their army of horsemen two hundred thousand thousand, long since prepared for an hour, and a day, and month, and a year (nearly four hundred years actual), to Kill the third part of men. And the third part of men were killed by them, "by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths." In 1453 the Turks, first employing enormous siege guns, were, by taking Constantinople, and destroying the long-existent Greek or Lower Roman empire there, loosed for new and unrestrained destruction on all sides. Against Europe first, but next against Egypt, which fell under their withering rule in 1517 A.D., when the last Slave-Sultan of Cairo was crucified over the gate of the common malefactors by Selim I., the Emperor of the Turks. But was that the end of the ings of Egypt? Far from it. disgraces and base suffer- In place of one slave- H 98 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. monarch, the Turks established in Egypt what amounted to a republic of petty, but innumerable slave-monarchs, to oppress the peaceable population, and fight with each other as much as they liked, so long only as certain tribute, ground by most pitiless tyranny from the peasant cultivators. of the land, was sent to Constantinople. Each Bey, says an acknowledged historian, was a tyrant in his own district, and they were all as tyrannical as their moral character was depraved. Frequently fighting with each other, often with their masters, the Turks, against whom they were rebelling, Egypt suffered more under the Memlook Beys than through any period of its history. And this state of things con- tinued up to the invasion of Egypt by Napoleon Bonaparte, with 70,000 burning red-republican soldiers from Paris, in 1798; when, at the battle of the Pyramids, the Memlook forces were first notably thinned. But they rose again to a head in one part of the country or another; until finally they were almost entirely extirpated by Mohammed Ali in 1811; leaving the residual and useful population of this once powerful, industrious and most densely inhabited, land of the early world to be summed up, in 1834 A.D., as no more than this: Muslim Egyptians (peasants and townspeople) Copts, or Egyptian Christians Osmanlees or Turks (still the governing body) Syrians Armenians Jews .. Various ……. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. ··· ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ··· ... •• .. ... *** ... 1,750,000 150,000 10,000 5000 2000 5000 70,000 The European mind enters into the Great Pyramid Question. After the terrific ordeal that Egypt had passed through in dominant Mohammedan times, it was more surprising that the population had not been entirely destroyed than that the ancient Pyramids escaped almost unscathed. But the population of Egypt has still, by Divine command and prophecy, to exist and see far other events than any that have yet occurred in that wondrous land of old; while the Jeezeh Pyramids, though they were close at hand during all that murdering time past, were not attractive either to CHAP. VII.] 99 RESEARCH CONTINUED. sabre or scimitar, being built of stone only, and planted in an actual desert land; in a rocky, sandy wilderness of a barren yellow-ochre colour far and near, without a blade of grass or a drop of water, but with graves all around them; an entire region where no man was particularly called on to venture in at any time; and least of all in troublous, lawless periods. Yet it was during that barbaric Turkish rule, of the almost republican Memlook Beys, that modern Europe. began to move, modern science to grow, modern travel to be undertaken; and Professor Greaves's visit to the Great Pyramid in 1637 A.D. was an example which soon had imitators, increasing in numbers as the centuries passed by. Again, too, we find the natural instinct of nations singles out the Great Pyramid as being far more interesting than any other monument of the general Pyramid kind; while in that one building again, the same empty stone chest, which had so affronted the Caliph Al Mamoun, still offered itself there in the interior, and the very farthest and crowning part of the interior too, as the chief object for explanation. Why was it in such a place of honour? Why was the whole Pyramid arranged in subservience to it ? Why was it, this mere coffer-box, so unpretending and plain? Why was it empty, lidless, and utterly with- out inscription, continually demanded modern Europe? Gradually the notion grew that it might be a sarco- phagus; that it was a sarcophagus; and that it had been intended for "that Pharaoh who (in 1483 B.C.) drove the Israelites out of Egypt; and who, in the end, leaving his carcass in the Red Sea, never had the opportunity of being deposited in his own tomb." But this idea was effectually quashed, for, amongst other reasons, this cogent one,-that the Great Pyramid was not only built, but had been sealed up too in all its more special portions, long before the birth even of that Pharaoh. Nay, before the birth of Isaac and Jacob as well; which disposes likewise of the attempt to call the Great Pyramid "the tomb of Joseph," whose mortal remains being carried away by the Israelites in their exodus, left the vacancy we now see in the coffer or stone box. Then wrote some literati of 1650 A.D., "Here was buried H 2 100 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. King Cheops, or Chemmis, the Royal, and Fourth Dynasty, builder of the Great Pyramid according to the Greeks; but his body hath been removed hence." Whereupon Professor Greaves pointed out "that Diodorus (Siculus) hath left, above 1600 years since, a memorable passage concerning Chemmis (Cheops), the builder of the Great Pyramid, and Cephren (Shafre), the equally royal and "Fourth Dynasty," founder of the work adjoining. "Although," saith he, "those kings intended these for their sepulchres, yet it happened that neither of them were buried there. For the people being exasperated against them by reason of the toilsomeness of these works, and for their cruelty and oppression, threatened to tear in pieces their dead bodies, and with ignominy to throw them out of their sepulchres. Whereupon both of them, dying, commanded their friends to bury them in an obscure place." The real place of burial of King Cheops, not the Great Pyramid. And again, both Professor Greaves and other scholars salutarily brought up, to check the then public mania for calling the coffer Cheop's coffin, the very clear account of Herodotus, in 445 B.C., that King Cheops could not possibly have been buried in the Great Pyramid building above, simply because he was buried low down, in a totally different place; viz., "in a subterranean region, on an island there surrounded by the waters of the Nile." And as that both necessarily and hydraulically means a level into which the Nile water could naturally flow, it must have been at a depth of more than fifty feet beneath the very bottom of even the unfinished subterranean chamber, the deepest work found yet underneath, or connected in any way with, the Great Pyramid. Exactly such a locality, too, both sepulchral, and with precisely the required hydraulic conditions, has since then been discovered about 1000 feet south-east of the Pyramid building. (See Plate XIX.) The structure there found, and still to be seen, descended into, and measured, though much defiled by the 26th and later Dynasties of ancient Egypt in its decline,—is a CHAP. VII] 101 RESEARCH CONTINUED. colossally large and deep burial pit, on the square and level bottom of which rests an antique, rude sarcophagus of very gigantic proportions. But deep as is the pit con- taining it, it is surrounded by a grand rectangular trench which goes down deeper still, cut cleanly in solid lime-stone rock the whole of the way down; and to such a depth does it reach at last as to descend below the level of the adjacent waters of the Nile at inundation time. Then, as the waters of that river necessarily percolate the hygroscopic rock of the hill up to their own level, the lower depths of the trench are filled with Nile water, and the grand old sarco- phagus of the interior pit does then rest in a manner on an island surrounded by the waters of the Nile," exactly as Herodotus described;-and it is the only known tomb on the Jeezeh hill which is gifted with that peculiarity or privilege. (C The Tombic Theory Shaken. So in later years than Greaves', all the single sarcophagus propositions for the benefit of that most remarkable stone chest up in the red-granite chamber of the Great Pyramid having failed, their remains have been merged into a sort of general sarcophagus theory, that some one must have been buried in it. And this notion finds much favour with the Egyptologists, as a school; though some strong facts are against them, even to their own knowledge. They allow, for instance, that in no other Pyramid is the sarcophagus as they boldly call the empty stone chest, or granite box, of other authors-contained high up in the body of the Pyramid, far above the surface of the ground outside; that in few other cases is it so perfectly devoid of adornment or inscription and at the same time of so peculiar a shape. Observe also with the alleged "sarcophagus," in the King's Chamber (for so is that apartment of the Great Pyramid now most generally termed), that there was no ancient attempt to build the vessel and the room contain- ing it, up and about in solid masonry in what would have been the most effective manner for securing a dead body inviolate. On the contrary, there were magnificently - 102 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. built white stone passages of a most lasting description, ready to lead a stranger right up to such far interior sarcophagus from the very entrance itself; while, more notably still, the shapely King's Chamber was intended to be ventilated in the most admirable manner by the "air channels" discovered by Colonel Howard-Vyse, in 1837 A.D.; evidently (as the actual fact almost enables us to say with security) in order that men might come there in the latter day, and look on, and deal with, that open granite chest, and live and not die. Meanwhile, some few good men and true in scientific researches witness M. Jomard in the celebrated" Descrip- tion de l'Egypte," and Sir Gardener Wilkinson in his own most deservedly popular works-had begun to express occasional doubts as to whether any dead body either of a king or of any other mortal man ever was deposited in the open vessel of the King's Chamber. ! John Taylor's Metrological Theory. And then came out the late John Taylor with the result of his long and respectful researches; suggesting that, “The coffer in the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid was intended to be a standard measure of capacity and weight; primarily in a special, exclusive, or selective manner, but ultimately for all nations; and certain nations, he considered, did thence originally receive their weights and measures; so that those of them who still preserve, to some degree, with their language and history, their hereditary, aboriginal weights and measures, may yet trace their prehistoric connection substantially with that one primeval, standard, metrological centre for all the future world, the Great Pyramid.' Take, for instance, our own case. When the British farmer measures the wheat which the bounty of Providence has afforded him in cultivating his land, in what terms does he measure it? In quarters. Quarters! Quarters of what? The existing British farmer does not know; for there is no capacity measure now on the Statute-book above the CHAP. VII.] 103 RESEARCH CONTINUED. quarter; but, from old custom, he calls his largest corn measure a quarter. Whereupon John Taylor adds in effect: "The quarter corn measures of the British farmer are fourth parts or quarters of the contents of the coffer in the King's Cham- ber of the Great Pyramid; and the true value, in size, of its particular corn measure, has not sensibly deteriorated during all the varied revolutions of mankind throughout the last 4040 years!" Practical Examination of John Taylor's Coffer Theory. The above is a statement not to be implicitly accepted without a very full examination; and after referring to no less than twenty-five different authors before going to Egypt in 1864 A.D., I obtained the following results rom the two best by far, for the cubical contents of the Coffer's interior; viz., from the fine old Oxford astronomer of 1638, Professor Greaves, =71,118; and from the honest and soldierly Colonel Howard-Vyse = 71,311. Or from the mean of both, 71,214 cubic inches. Wherefore now, what proportion does the fourth part of that number bear to the capacity of one modern English corn quarter, in terms of which British wheat is measured and sold at this very hour? Referring to the almanac for the Act of Parliament on the subject, we find that one gallon is declared to be equal to 277 274 cubic inches; which quantity being multiplied for bushels and quarters, yields 17,746 English cubic inches; the fourth part of the coffer, computed as above, yielding 17,804. Qualities of the Coffer's "Quarter" Measure. A sufficiently fair amount of agreement is this, between the things compared (viz., the Pyramid coffer on one side divided into four from the first decently good measures of any modern savants; and on the other, the old Anglo- Saxon corn-measure, after being too often "adjusted" by Acts of Parliament, since those halcyon days of rest when Edgar "the peaceable" reigned over England at Win- 104 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. chester, 958-975 A.D.),-sufficiently near, I repeat, to allow friends of worthy old John Taylor to say that so far the Great Pyramid, with its coffer of four British corn- quarter capacity, if originally intended for it, is still capable of fulfilling the purpose of one of the Greek interpretations of its now world-famous name, in meting out, πupòs, corn. To nations in a primitive condition, the first application of capacity measures would, with little doubt, be in the exchange of corn; and through whatever subsequent stage of power, luxury, or refinement they may pass, the mea- suring of the staff of life will probably still keep up a permanent importance over every other object of measur- ing or weighing, even though it be of drugs, or silver, or gold,-in perfect accordance so far with our Lord's Prayer, where the only material supplication is, "Give us dayby day our daily bread." Yet is it to be also remarked, that if any given means for measuring corn were devised by a very superior in- telligence, they should eventually be found applicable also, so far as principles of, and capacity for, accuracy go, to many of the more precise purposes to which the after progress of mankind may introduce them. Thus, the moon, with its frequently recurring variations and phases, serves man in the savage, and did serve him in the primitive and patriarchal, state, as a coarse method of chronicling time month by month. In a more developed and civilized condition, some of the larger cycles of lunations enable him to speak exactly of many years at a time, and approximate to some eclipses. In a still further advanced condition, the moon's subsidiary features of movement enable the educated mariner in the midst of the broad surface of ocean, assisted by data from the astronomer and mathematician on shore, to measure his precise longitude. Next, amongst the ablest minds of the present day, the theory of those movements and the computation of their nature, form an arena where every chief mathematician of his country may measure off his own intellectual height at the base of an infinite cliff which he may never hope to stand on the summit of. And finally, some of the most remarkable of the inspired CHAP. VII.] 105 RESEARCH CONTINUED. predictions of both Daniel and St. John, as well as the Scriptural history of men in the past, are found to have been arranged by the Creator, from the beginning of all things, to be, in some almost unscrutable manner, co- incident with certain combinations of Lunar with Solar- Lunar cycles, of still more lengthened period.* In exact proportion, therefore, as man has become able to profit by God's moon, which he, man, originally believed was merely intended to slightly moderate for him the darkness of night, so has the divinely appointed luminary been found capable of more and more applica- tions; and whenever any difficulty has occurred, it has never been any want of perfect accuracy in the lunar machinery itself, but merely in the power of man to interpret the working of it. And when at last, as in the present day, his powers in that line have become con- siderable, he then begins to find symptoms in the Book of Inspiration, that there was an Intelligence there, which knew it long ago; and that man cannot break out of the limits appointed him by God, either in time or space or harmony of surroundings. Is there, then, anything approaching to the same suggestive principle connected with the coffer " measure" of the Great Pyramid ? corn- * See the Rev. Grattan Guiness's important work on "The Approaching End of the Age." 106 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. CHAPTER VIII. THE COFFER'S SUBSTANCE, SHAPE AND SIZE (FURTHER EXAMINED). Granite its True Material. SOM OME thirty to fifty years ago there seems to have prevailed much doubt in the literary world as to the species of stone in which the coffer of the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid was constructed, or cut out of. And so many traveller-authors had declared for the material being porphyry, that John Taylor, misled thereby, spoke confidently of "the porphyry coffer"; and I followed his lead in the first Edition of the present book in 1864, previous to going to Eygpt. But almost the first result of that experience opened my eyes at once to the material being nothing approach- ing to the ordinarily known either red or green porphyry of the Red Sea neighbourhood of Egypt; but being simply the red granite of Syene in the South. A mineral only microscopically different from the red granite of Scotland and of most other countries which have any granite at all. This correction is fortunately of not the slightest im- portance as touching Mr. Taylor's metrological theory of the coffer. Or rather the latter vessel is all the better suited thereto by the correction. Another correction, however, of the literary accounts which presented itself, the moment I looked at the coffer itself, as it still stands in the King's Chamber, was, that though when in progress of construction the figure may have been simple, and to be described only by length, breadth, and depth, both inside and out,-there is now a CHAP. VIII.] THE COFFER EXAMINED. 107 ledge as for a lid cut out of, or into, the substance of the top of the sides of what had been styled proverbially for ages "the lidless box, or open chest, of stone." (See Plate XVII.) Compared with this discovery, it was nothing that the vessel was chipped and chipped again by modern mischief workers on every possible edge; that the south-eastern corner was broken away by fresh hammer fractures to an extent of eight or ten inches more than it was in the days of Colonel Howard Vyse; and that the south end of the coffer was tilted up by a black flint pebble, thrust under it by the Arabs, to make it sound better when beaten for dance music. For that ledge, so neatly and skilfully cut out, had every appearance of being an ancient Egyptian work, to suit a sarcophagus cover being placed upon the coffer; or rather slided on from the western side; for the ledge cut out goes all across that side, the extreme ends of it only excepted, but does nothing more than bite into the other three sides. The difficulty, however, admits of being inquired into by careful measures of all the still outstanding bulk of the originally worked surfaces of this very unique and impor- tant vessel. And of such measures I made, and published, first in my "Life and Work at the Great Pyramid” book, and then in Edition 4 of the present work, about 140 dis- tinct measures, resulting chiefly in these mean figures:- The depth of the ledge cut out is 1.72 of an inch, and its breadth on the north, east, and south sides, from 1.55 to 1.73 of an inch, being slightly dove-tailed below, as discovered by Dr. J. A. S. Grant and Mr. Waynman Dixon, FOR THE OUTSIDE OF THE COFFER. The mean original length = 89 71 British, and 89-62 Pyramid inches. Its similar breadth 38.65 British, and 38.61 Pyramid inches. Its similar height 41.27 British, and 41·23 Pyramid inches. And = The mean thickness of the four vertical sides is 5.99 inches, and, similarly, of the bottom is 6.92 inches. FOR THE INSIDE OF THE COFFER, BY INDEPENDENT MEASURES. The mean original length = 77.93 British, and 77 85 Pyramid inches. = 26 70 Pyramid inches. And 34:31 Pyramid inches. The similar breadth = 26.73 British The similar depth = 34.34 British These measures being taken exclusive of, or making up for, the com- paratively small ledge-cut-out, and correcting for, some minute deviations in the sides, both inside and out, from their not being perfect planes. - 108 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. The Sarcophagus Theory of the Coffer. With all this accumulation, then, of knowledge, let us now try the opposing theories of the coffer's purposes and intention, beginning with the Egyptological claim of tomb and burial; especially as that has something to say touching shape as well as size. The inside dimensions of the coffer being, by our own measures (roughly), 6·5 feet long, 2.2 feet wide, and almost 3 feet deep, are at least long enough and broad enough for a coffin; and if rather deeper than convenient or necessary, I will not object to that, as there is now proved to be a ledge cut into the top of the thick sides of the vessel, and quite suitable for a lid. As there is a ledge, an intention at some time to put on a lid may or must be inferred; but it is still to be proved whether a lid ever was put on by the architect of the Great Pyramid, and especially for sarcophagus purposes; because, first, with a sarcophagus lid of the ordinary style and thickness fastened into that ledge, the coffer could not have passed through the closely fitting doorway of the room; it would have been several whole inches too high. Second, a sarcophagus lid fastened into that ledge would have betokened the accomplishment of the last rites to the dead; and they would have included among all Eastern nations, but more especially the contemporary, indigenous, profane Egyptians, the engraving the deceased's name, titles, deeds, and history on the coffer, both inside and out. But there is nothing of that kind there; so the Great Pyramid coffer remains still the smooth-sided, vacant, lidless chest of Caliph Al Mamoun's Arab tale; quite capable of having been made at any time into a sarcophagus; but testifying in the most positive manner that it never was completely so converted, whatever may have been the reason why or wherefore. "C Considering, however, the coffer's approximate shape, size, and situation, I am quite ready to allow it to be a blind sarcophagus"; viz., a deceiving blind to the eyes of the Pharaonic and idolatrous Egyptian workmen, as well as a symbol sarcophagus to others, reminding them of CHAP. VIII.] 109 THE COFFER EXAMINED. death, judgment, and eternity (as well taught by William Simpson, artist, archeologist, and traveller); but without thereby interfering one iota with its further more exact objects and intentions. And what are they? Only look at the beginning of them, as the vessel tells them off itself in number and measure; taking the coffer measures, for instance, as of the whole vessel before the ledge was cut out, from the previous pages, in Pyramid inches, then- Length. Bredth De. or Ht. Volume. Coffer interior = 77.85 × 26·70 × 34:31 = 71,317. Coffer exterior 89.62 × 38.61 × 41·13 = 142,316· = that is, within the limits of accuracy of the modern mea- sures, the volume of the exterior is double that of the interior; and the simplest even relation between them is that of capacity. Again, the mean thickness of the sides of the coffer being assumed from the measures, in Pyramid inches 5'952, and of the bottom 6.866, we have (from a formula first prepared by the ingenious Mr. Henry Perigal)— Coffer's bottom 89.62 x 38.61 × 6·866 = 23,758. Coffer's sides = 2 (89·62 × 26·70) × 34·31 × 5·952 = 47·508· 71,266. or again, we find a duplicity of the one quantity against the other; and the only apparent simple relation between the two, and of the sum of both with the interior of the vessel, is that of capacity. If, then, now we may justifiably say, that though the coffer is probably what John Taylor did not think it, viz., a blind sarcophagus and a symbolical coffin, it is also most positively what he did consider it (though we say so by means of mensuration proof which he never lived to see), viz., a vessel at whose birth certain leading geometrical requirements both of, and for, capacity measure presided and governed :-then in that case, what is its precise capacity? 110 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. What shall we consider the capacity of the Coffer proved to be? Taking the ledge breadth, a most unexpected confirma- tion (from my " Antiquity of Intellectual Man," p. 300) as 34.282 Pyramid inches, then the coffer's cubic contents in cubic Pyramid inches are:- (1) By interior length and breadth, and in place of depth the ledge-breadth . (2) By interior of coffer, by all direct measures (3) By half the exterior volume directly measured (4) By sum of bottom and sides directly measured • • ===== 71,258. 71,317. 71,160. 71,266' Here then we have a vessel whose cubic contents are not only something, on the whole excessively near to 71,250 cubic Pyramid inches, but it was pretty evidently intended, by enabling us so nearly to bring out that number in several different ways. While that precise quantity, and the care for that quantity, of just so many cubic inches, rather than any other, expressed in Great Pyramid measure, are so impossible for the Egyptologists to explain on any sarcophagus theory of their own, either pure and simple, or profane and ornate,-that they do not attempt it. And we must now strive to ascertain, on methods both absolutely new to Egyptology, and which must have been totally unknown to all the Pharaonic serfs of old Egypt, what the great Pyramid itself may have to add to this; viz., its own preliminary setting forth of some very high science reason why this vessel before us, the coffer in the King's Chamber, is not only "a symbolical sarcophagus, but one adapted likewise to something further and more expressively connected with capacity measure." Still later and yet more numerous measures of the Coffer. Yet here, Mr. F. Petrie's measures of the coffer 17 years after mine, may very appropriately detain us some moments longer. For he made no less than 388 observations of off- sets to points on the outside, 281 on the inside, and 281 calliper measures. He likewise raised the coffer from the floor and found no lines, and certainly no inscriptions and CHAP. VIII.] THE COFFER EXAMINED. 111 no hieroglyphics on either the uniformly level floor, or the bottom of the coffer. So that there was nothing left to him after all, but to criticise the asserted sarcophagus of the Egyptologists, as the coffer of John Taylor's capacity mensuration arrangement. Nor does he after all bring out any very different re- sults to mine; for although he finally arrives at, contents of the hollow space 71,960 cubic British inches; con- tents of the substance of the four sides and bottom (making up, I conclude, for the ledge cut out, and allowing for the terrible extent of modern mischievous breakages) 70,630; and contents of volume over all 142,590; or divided by two 71,295;-yet he cannot help showing that the great excess of the cubic hollow, and corresponding defect of the bulk of the sides and bottom, as compared with half the whole volume (i.e., 71,295) merely arise from the workmen having cut out rather too much interior space by positive slips of their tools, and thereby left less solid substance in the vessel's sides. = But I am rather inclined, notwithstanding the mere number of his measures, to fall back on my own mensura- tions; which realize in the coffer the same principle of limits, which has been already accepted in the case of the linear dimensions of other portions of Great Pyramid work. For there is a graduated difference of dimensions in length and breadth between the top and bottom of the coffer, such, that while a length at the top is absolutely too great, and one near the bottom as absolutely too small, yet there must be, a certain height between them, where the length, breadth and depth give the exact cubic contents required by theory; viz., 71,250 Pyr, inches. Mr. F. Petrie's discovery of granite sawing and drilling at Great Pyramid. Wherefore the most important, as well as the most decidedly original, part of Mr. Petrie's labours at the coffer, is the interesting discovery that it must have been sawed out of the solid granite, however superlatively hard that rock may be, and however unknown and impossible to modern civilization such process may have been, until 112 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. the epoch of the French Exhibition of 1878, A.D.; when were produced "black-diamond tubular drills" capable of working through almost any kind of stone. Now the sawing of the outside of the coffer must have been performed, Mr. F. P. concludes, by bronze saws, 8 or 9 feet long, set with teeth of sapphires. While the cutting out of the material of the hollow must have been accom- plished by tubular drills of the same hard metal, set with the same still harder jewel teeth; and rotated with such immense force under enormous vertical pressure, that the teeth have actually been found in some cases to have cut continued and regular spiral lines, as the drill descended with comparative rapidity into the granite rock. At the same time Mr. F. Petrie, though an Egyptologist of the Egyptologists, does not attempt to bring before the world,— and that is still more to our purpose here,—any other sarcophagus, both equally plain-sided with the coffer of the Great Pyramid, and at the same time with the cubic contents of both its hollow interior, its solid substance, and half its whole volume, each measuring so nearly, or any- thing near to, the theoretical quantity of 71,250 cubic Pyramid inches. But on the contrary he has, some inci- dental notices of sarcophagi with sides a foot thick, in place of 5.9 inches, and with rounded interiors to suit a mummy form, in place of a nearly rectangular hollow; and which sarcophagi could not have had anything like a ruling 71,250 inch capacity throughout. So that just as it was set forth in the instance of the external shape of the Great Pyramid in our Part I., pp. 19, 36, 45,-there are plenty of other Pyramids in Egypt, but none with the base-side length and side slope-angle of the great one; so there are plenty of granite sarcophagi, of the Pyramid building age too, and smooth-sided as well, but none with, or in anyway pointing to, the 71,250 cubical inches measure, three times repeated, of John Taylor's "Coffer" of the King's Chamber. - CHAP. IX.] 113 DENSITY AND TEMPERATURE. CHAPTER IX. DENSITY AND SURFACE TEMPERATURE OF BOTH EARTH AND GREAT PYRAMID. TH HOUGH there be no inscriptions, yet is there much instruction on the interior walls of the Great Pyramid; and as the coffer has its 71,250 cubic Pyramid inches of capacity still to be scientifically accounted for, let us try something of the teaching of the walls which precede, as well as those which surround it. * Ante-Chamber Granite Symbolisms. In order to enter the Great Pyramid's so-called King's Chamber, we have to pass, from the Grand Gallery, through the "Ante-Chamber." (Plates XIV. and XV.) It is very appropriately so called, because it is a little room which must be passed through before the King's Chamber can be entered or the coffer seen; and in pass- ing through it, the attentive eye may note many more. complicated forms there, than in any other part of the Great Pyramid. Amongst these notanda are certain vertical lines above the southern or further doorway. Previous travellers have contradicted contradicted each other so abundantly about the number of these lines, that I was rather surprised to perceive them instantly to be not only confined to the number four, but these distinct, regular, parallel, extending the whole way evenly, from ceiling to door-top, and no less than 1074 inches long, 2.8 inches * That is to say, as nearly as a huge fracture of that lower corner of the granite block forming the doorway allowed me easily to judge in 1865: fo: w.thin the limits of that fracture, Dr. Grant claims to have recently found proofs that the lower ends of the lines did not quite go through to the passage below, but ended in a short, curved beve'. 1 114 THE GREAT PYRAMID. [PART II. deep, and 3.8 inches broad each; with six-inch spaces between, and with similar six-inch spaces also between the outer side of each outermost line, and the bounding of the ante-room's South wall containing them. Hence the lines were subservient to the spaces, and the whole arrangement appeared to me, not so much, though it is to a certain extent, a system of four lines, as an example of surface divided into five equal portions or spaces. As the doorway is only 42 inches high, and the dividing lines of the wall above it are apparently drawn down to the doorway's (now broken) top, a man of ordinary height standing in the ante-room and looking southward (the direction he desires to go, in order to reach the King's Chamber), cannot fail (if he has a candle with him, for otherwise everything is in darkness here) to see this space divided into five. And when he bows his head very low, as he must do to pass under the said southern doorway of only 42 inches high, he bends his head submissively under that symbol of division into five; and should remember, that five is the first and most characteristic of the Pyramid numbers. (See Plate XVI.) Travellers describe the Wall-courses of the King's Chamber. Not without reason, therefore, was it, as the intelligent traveller may readily believe, that the architect of the Great Pyramid desired to impress that division into five upon every visitor's mind, just the last thing before such visitor should bow down, previously to passing through the low, grim doorway, cut out of granite 100 inches thick. But after that, rising up in the midst of the ultimate King's Chamber beyond-what would any and every beholder witness there? According to that usually most correct of travellers, Pro- fessor Greaves, he says of the King's Chamber, in 1639, that everyone may see there "from the top of it descend- ing to the bottom, there are but six ranges of stone, all which, being respectively sized to an equal height, very CHAP. IX.] DENSITY AND TEMPERATURE. 115 gracefully in one and the same altitude run round the room." Well, though that is a very pretty arrangement, and the grace of it is perfectly true, it is not the accomplishment of a division into five; so let us try an older traveller, Sandys, of a curt and epigrammatic style, and writing in 1610. Says he, of the self-same King's Chamber, "A right royal apartment, and so large that eight floors it, eight roofs it; eight stones flagge the ends and sixteen the sides." Worse and worse. Says Dr. Pocock in 1743, "Six tiers of stones of equal breadth compose the sides"; which account M. Fourmont, on the part of Bourbon France, confirms in 1755 by laying down that "the walls are composed of six equal ranges.' The still more famous traveller, Dr. Clarke, makes Cam- bridge in 1801 support Oxford in 1639, by particularising that "there are only six ranges of stone from the floor to the roof"; while, finally, that usually infallible author on Egypt, at least where Arabo-Egyptian and therefore Mohammedan life was concerned, Mr. Lane, with his clever and industrious relatives, the Pooles, almost natives of Cairo, seem to set a seal for ever on the mistake by declaring, "Number of courses in the walls of the King's Chamber, six." "" >> What could have blinded all these duly warned men, and sent them following each other down one and the same too easy rut of simple, ridiculous error? Dr. Richardson, in 1817, was more original, if error apparently there must be in these dark-room investigations by candle-light in the interior of the Great Pyramid; for he chose a new and hitherto untrodden line of erring for himself, sententiously writing of the room, "Lined all around with broad flat stones, smooth and highly polished, each stone ascending from the floor to the ceiling. But having once begun this new mis-description, he soon has followers and we find the Lord Lindsay, of 1838, announcing, s; (( A noble apartment, cased with enormous slabs of granite 20 feet high" (or a little more than the whole height of the room); and Sir William R. Wilde with his companion signing himself M.R.I.A., in 1837, equally publish to the world, as observed by themselves, “An ; I 2 116 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. oblong apartment, the sides of which are formed of enormous blocks of granite reaching from the floor to the ceiling." And yet, will it be credited that the walls of this chamber are divided into five horizontal courses, neither more nor less, almost four feet high each; and that these courses are most easy to count, as they must have been undoubtedly most expensive for the architect to construct; because every course is, as Professor Greaves so beautifully indicated, of the same height as every other, except, indeed (as I believe I was the first to point out), the lowest, which course is less than the rest by nearly 1-10th part, if measured from the floor; but is the same height if measured from the base of its own granite component blocks, which descend in the wall to beneath the floor's level?* (See Plate XVII.) The really Pyramid Number of the King's Chamber Wall-courses, and of Stones in them. But I was not by any means the first person to find out that the courses in the walls of the King's Chamber were five only, for the same thing had been noted by Lord Egmont in 1709, and Dr. Shaw in 1721, and perhaps by some others earlier or later; though no one previously to myself had, so far as I am aware, either fought against the world for the correctness of his observation, or con- nected the number with both the teaching of the architect in the ante-chamber, and the quinary character of the Pyramid's first arithmetic. Yet, quinary though it be for some purposes, it is decimal for others, as shown here in almost juxtaposition; first, by the tenth part nearly, taken off the height of the * Full particulars of the measures of this room in whole and part, and parts compared against whole, are contained in my "Life and Work at the Great Pyramid," Vol. II.; but are too long to introduce here. I have given there also the immediately succeeding measures of a young en- gineer-sent, I believe, by a rich man for the salutary purpose to me, and useful to the public, of tripping me up if he could, but finally and involuntarily confirming my measures both of number and size of courses in this room. CHAP. IX.] DENSITY AND TEMPERATURE. 117 lower course, by the manner of introduction of the floor; and then by the 10 x 10 number of stones, exactly, of which the walls of this beautiful chamber are composed. This latter circumstance was only announced shortly after my publication of 1867, by Mr. Flinders Petrie; and does him, at that early period of his life, all the more credit. because, when I came to test the statement, founded by him on my measures, not his, there was one joint line, by mistake, too many in the middle course of the south wall in my engraved plate of the chamber, though the printed numbers were correct. Since then again, Dr. Grant, Mr. Waynman Dixon, and other gentlemen have been out to the Great Pyramid specially to test this matter; and when from the floor upwards they had counted the stones of four courses only, and found them to be so many as 93, did they not rejoice to think what a huge error they would presently have against my statement in the second edition of this book! They did rejoice over the prospect-one of them has confessed; but when they came to count the stones of the fifth and topmost course, they beheld, to their utter confusion, that the length of the stones was so greatly increased in it, that there was only space for seven of them. That seven, however, making up the exact hundred, as well as signifying something further in that room touching 57, even as we shall presently be compelled to set forth. A marked portion of the King's Chamber, and the Coffer are mutually commensurable in Pyramid Numbers. But the tenth part, nearly, taken off the visible height of the lower granite course of the chamber's walls; what was that for? Its first effect was to make that course, within the fraction of an inch, the same height as the coffer; and the second was, more exactly, to make the capacity, or cubic contents of that lowest course of the room, so decreased, equal to fifty times the cubic contents of the coffer, already deduced to be 71,250 cubic Pyramid inches. Two separate sets of measured numbers in Pyramid inches for the length, breadth, and height, of that lowest 118 THE GREAT PYRAMID. [PART II. chamber-course giving as follows, when divided by the coffer's contents- 112·14 × 206·09 × 41.9 3,558.899. 71,250 71,250 And =49.95. 412 × 206 × 42 3,564,624 71,250. 71,250. Hence, close as was the connection of the several parts of the coffer with each other by the tie of capacity, equally close is the connection of the coffer with the one adjusted course of the granite room in which it stands, and by capacity measure also. While, if the multiple before was 2, and is 50 now,-is not 50 twice 25, or double the number of inches in the cubit of the Great Pyramid? 50.03. Commensurabilities between the King's Chamber and the structural Masonry-courses of the whole Pyramid. Neither did the fives and its multiples of this chamber, on being examined, end here; for having been greatly struck outside the monument on contemplating the grandeur of the horizontal courses of masonry of which the whole Pyramid is built, I began next to study them by measure. Not at all equal to, but often violently different from, each other are these courses in their successive heights; but, whatever height or thickness of stones any one course is begun with, it is kept on at that thickness precisely, right through the whole Pyramid at that level (i.e., if we may judge of the unknown interior of the stratum by the four external edges thereof); though too the area of the horizontal section may amount to whole acres. To secure this equality of thickness for a course,-in fact, just as with the equal height of the granite courses in the King's Chamber walls, but on a far larger scale,-it was plain that immense arrangements must have been instituted beforehand, with the masons of many quarries; and such arrangements imply method, mind, and, above all, intention. Wherefore, having measured the thickness of every component course of the Great Pyramid, one day CHAP. IX.] 119 DENSITY AND TEMPERATURE. in April, 1865, when ascending to the summit, and another day in descending, I compared and confirmed those figures with my own photographs of the building placed under a compound microscope; and also with similar numbers obtained from still more careful measures by the French Academicians in 1799 and 1800; and then began to sum up the courses' successive thickness to give the whole height of any particular number of courses. (See pp. 76-78.) On reaching in this manner the 50th course, lo! the total height of that stratum, or 1,690 inches, gave the hypsometrical level of the floor of the King's Chamber nearly as well as it has yet been ascertained directly by all the best authorities.* So that the level of the 50th course of construction of the whole Pyramid is the level also of that granite floor, whereon is resting the coffer, a vessel with commensurable capacity proportions between its in- side and out, and its walls and floor, in a room with 5 courses, composed of 100 stones, and with a capacity proportion (the coffer) of 50, to the lowest of those courses; which lowest course has further been made 5 inches less in apparent height than any of the others of its fellows by a peculiar adjustment. Any person could hardly but see, then, that the so- called, in the dark ages, King's Chamber, should rather have been termed the chamber of the standard of 50. Can we also say, with reference to our present inquiry, of 50 Pyramid inches employed in capacity-measure? Fifty Pyramid inches form the one ten-millionth of the earth's axis of rotation; or decidedly the proper fraction of the proper reference to begin with for capacity measure, when we have already chosen one ten-millionth of the semi-axis for linear measure. The reason being, that in measuring linear distances, say amongst the spheres of heaven, men measure them from centre to centre, and therefore have only to take account of the intervening radii of each; but in dealing with either their capacity or weight, we must take each sphere in its entirety, * In page 184 of his Pyramid book of 1883, Mr. F. Petrie gives the 50th course by measure = 16976 and the King's Chamber floor level, from 1691.4 to 1693.7, while the thickness of a course at that level he states at about 30 inches. 120 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. or from side to side, that is, by its diameter rather than radius. More Symbolical Hints from the Ante-chamber. Such is the answer to the first part of the question; and an indication how to deal with the second part may be gathered from some of the hitherto incomprehensible things in the little ante-chamber to this far grander chamber. Little indeed is the ante-chamber, when it measures only 65.2 inches in utmost breadth from east to west, 116-3 long from north to south, and 1494 high; but it has a sort of granite wainscot on either side of it, full of detail. (See Plate XV.) On the east side, this wainscot is only 1031 inches high, and is flat and level on the top; but on the west side it is 111.8 inches high, and has three semi-cylindrical cross hollows of nine inches radius, cut down into it, and also back through its whole thickness of 8.5 to 117 inches to the wall. Each of those semi-cylindrical hollows stands over a broad, shallow, vertical, flat groove 216 inches wide, 3.2 inches deep, running from top to bottom of the wainscot, leaving a pilaster-like separation between them. The greater part of the said pilasters has indeed long since been hammered away, but their fractured places are easily traced; and with this allowance to researchers in the present day, the groove and pilaster part of the arrange- ment is precisely repeated on the east side, within its lower compass of height. These three grand, flat, vertical grooves, then, on either side of the narrow ante-chamber, have been pronounced long since by Egyptologists to be part of a vertically sliding portcullis system for the defence of the door of the King's Chamber. There are no blocks now to slide up and down in these grooves, nor have such things ever been seen there since the arrival of European learning but the gentlemen point triumphantly to a fourth groove, of a different order, existing to the north of all the others, indeed near the north-beginning of the ante-chamber; and with its portcullis block, they say, still suspended, and ready for work. (See Plates XIV. to XVI.). . . CHAP. IX.] 121 DENSITY AND TEMPERATURE. The Granite Leaf of the Ante-chamber. That alleged portcullis block, however, contains many peculiarities which modern Egyptologists have never explained; and as it was first carefully described by Professor Greaves under the appellation of "the granite leaf" (from the so-called "leaf or "slat," or sliding door over the water-way of a lock-gate in an English navigation. canal), we had better keep to that name. Its groove, instead of being 216 inches broad, like the others, is only 17·1 broad; and in place of being like them cut down to, and even several inches into, the floor, terminates 43.7 inches above that basal plane; so that the leaf's block, or rather blocks-for it is in two pieces, one above the other-stand on solid stone of the walls on either side, and could not be immediately lowered to act as a portcullis, though an emperor should command it. Nor would they make a good portcullis if they were to be chiselled down in their vertical plane, seeing that there are 21 inches free end space in the chamber between the leaf and the north entering wall and doorway, where a man might worm himself in, in front of that face of it; and 57 inches above the leaf's utmost top, where several men might clamber over. The granite leaf is, therefore, even by the few data already given, a something which needs a vast deal more than a simple portcullis notion to explain it. And so do likewise the three broader empty pairs of grooves to the south of it, remarkable with their now rudely broken semi-cylindrical hollows on the west side of the chamber. Various ideas as to their uses have been given out from time to time, but none commended themselves to my mind at the place, more than that of the three dimensions necessary to express capacity contents-the three hollow curves, too, reminding of the curved shell of the earth's surface; and the granite leaf with its double block (imply- ing double power to its specific gravity) leading one then to think of the earth's interior, or capacity, contents; for they are, when taken in the whole, of almost exactly double the mean density, or specific gravity, of that Syenitic granite. ") 122 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Earth's Mean Density already approximately indicated, but required more exactly. Here, then, from every side-from the coffer, the King's Chamber, the Pyramid courses, and the ante- chamber trappings of stone-many of the very, and most scientific, and suitable items necessary for preparing earth reference capacity and weight measures were gradually cropping up in 1865 A.D., before earnest and attentive study of the actual Pyramid facts, to a quiet onlooker, measuring-rod in hand. But no mere linear measuring- rod can supply the further radical idea required for weight, if it is to have an earth-globe reference. The something else called for in this instance, in order to be true to the grandeur of the beginning made in the Pyramid linear system for length, could be no other than the mean density of the whole world; and this quantity is not yet by any means so intimately understood by every one, that it would be generally and instantly recognized the moment it should haply be seen, under some symbolical figure or numerical equivalent, in the Great Pyramid. Although, too, the earth's mean density has been for long a subject of paramount interest throughout other most important and varied branches of natural philosophy, besides astronomy (and not only in this country but the whole world over), yet it has been practically, diligently, successfully studied by hardly any other nation than our- selves; and what we have done in the cause has been con- fined to very late times indeed. The first special move, always excepting Sir Isaac Newton's most sagacious guess in the absence of any experiment, that it might be five, or even six times heavier than water, seems to have been made by Dr. Maskelyne in 1772; and hence came the celebrated experiment on the attraction of the plumb-line by Mount Schihallion, in Scotland; and whose ultimate computation gave for the concluded density of the whole earth 4.8; but with some suspicions that it might be still more. And finally, amongst such mountain determinations, came that of the Ordnance Survey in 1855 on the hill of Arthur's Seat, near Edinburgh; near Edinburgh; which observations CHAP. IX.] DENSITY AND TEMPERATURE. 123 yielded, when put through the necessary computations by Captain Ross Clarke, R.E., the number 5.316. Another species of experiment, not far removed in its nature from the above, was tried in 1826 by Mr. (now Sir) George B. Airy, Astronomer-Royal, Dr. Whewell, and the Rev. Richard Sheepshanks, by means of pendulum observations, at the top and bottom of a deep mine in Cornwall; but the proceeding at that time failed. Sub- sequently, in 1855, the case was taken up again by Sir G. B. Airy and his Greenwich assistants, in a mine near Newcastle. They were reinforced by the then new inven- tion of sympathetic electric control between clocks at the top and bottom of the mine, and had much more uniform, though still unexpectedly large, results-the mean density of the earth coming out, for them, 6·565. Modern Natural Philosophy and Closet Experiments on the Earth's Mean Density. The subject being thus so excessively difficult to obtain a close numerical result upon, even by the best modern astronomy, good service was done to the world in the course of the last century, when the Rev. John Mitchell proposed a different and a direct manner of trying the experiment actually between the several parts of one and the same piece of apparatus. He died, indeed, before he himself could practice his acute suggestion; but it was taken up after his death by the celebrated Cavendish, and worked very successfully in 1798, with a result of 5·450. Nearly forty years after Cavendish's great work, his experiment was repeated by Professor Reich, of Freyberg, in Saxony, with a result of 544; and then came the grander repetition by the late Francis Baily, representing therein the Royal Astronomical Society of London, and, in fact, the British Government and the British nation. With exquisite care did that well versed and methodical observer proceed to his task; and yet his observations did not prosper. Week after week, and month after month, unceasing measures were recorded; but only to show that some dis- 124 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. turbing element was at work, overpowering the attraction of the larger on the smaller balls. What could it be? Professor Reich was applied to, and requested to state how he had contrived to get the much greater degree of accordance with each other, that his published observa- tions showed. "Ah!" he explained, “he had had to reject all his earlier observations until he had guarded against variations of temperature by putting the whole apparatus into a cellar, and only looking at it with a telescope through a small hole in the door." Then it was remembered that a very similar plan had been adopted by Cavendish; who had furthermore left this note behind him for his successor's attention-" that even still, or after all the precautions which he did take, minute variations and small exchanges of temperature between the large and small balls were the chief obstacles to full accuracy." Mr. Baily therefore adopted yet further, and very peculiar, means to prevent sudden changes of temperature in his observing room; and then only did the anomalies vanish, and the real observations begin. The full story of them, and all the particulars of every numerical entry, and the whole of the steps of calculation, are to be found in the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, and constitute one of the most interesting volumes* of that important series; while its final result for the earth's mean density was announced as 5.675, probable error ± 0·0038. The Ordnance Survey's Arthur's Seat experiment gave the same earth's mean density as 5.316, probable error± 0.054. And Sir George B. Airy's mine experiment declared still the same earth's same mean density to be 6.565, probable error ± 0·018. From which lamentably conflicting data, it will be seen that modern science, whatever it implies, by "probable *The fourteenth volume. CHAP. IX.] 125 DENSITY AND TEMPERATURE. error," about its extreme accuracy to or less, cannot really be certain in this transcendentally difficult, but infinitely important, physical inquiry respecting the earth's mean density to nearer than about th of the whole quantity. 1 300 Earth's Density Number in the Great Pyramid. Now, the Pyramid's earth's mean density comes out, if at all, most simply, and to an accuracy at once of three places of figures, certain; from-the cubic contents of the coffer in Pyramid inches, divided by the 10th part of 50 inches, after being cubed. Whence, trusting to my measures, already given, it is, or was plainly intended to 125,000 be:-71,250 divided by ; the quotient being 10 5.70. While the grand 57 of the seven stones forming 1 the 5th and topmost course of the walls of this King's Chamber, crown the conclusion on every side. Long after the publication of the above Pyramid theorem, and after it had run the gauntlet in London of being railed against because its numbers were so very different from any of those previously brought out by modern science, the result of a new and supposed better and safer scientific method than any of the older ones, was published by the Royal Society, London; in their Proceedings, Vol. XXVIII., No. 190, Meeting of November 21, 1878. The observations were taken by Professor J. H. Poynting, B.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in the Laboratory of Owen's College, Manchester, and though partly apologised for as to their rudeness, and proposed to be improved on by future experiments with grander apparatus, yet did when duly reduced to one single numerical expression, amount to 5.69. At which rate of approach to the Pyramid fixture, who shall attempt to say, that 570 is not, so far as these numbers go, the true quantity created by God, and Divinely donated to the earth-ball inhabited by man—His last and wondrous work. 126 [PART II: THE GREAT PYRAMID. Of Temperature Corrections, and how effected. Some further questions, however, modern science already asks of Pyramidists, in order to ascertain whether, and how, certain precautions, which she thinks necessary in all her own important work of the present day, were taken, and still remain effective, in those primeval operations of the so long sealed-up interior of the Great Pyramid. For instance, if the coffer has to be considered as to its weight contents in water (and water filling is so frequently an operation connecting capacity and weight measures), strict attention is necessary to temperature, an element, or condition usually supposed to be only amenable to the thermometers of the last 200 years; yet the smallest errors on the score of uncertainties of temperature (and we may say almost the same for variations of barometric pressure), in the ancient work, would have introduced unnumbered perplexities. These perplexities, nevertheless, are far from being found in the Great Pyramid's Coffer, as arranged by its ancient architect. Not because that mysteriously gifted individual either had, or left behind, any very superior mercurial thermometers; but because he employed a method overriding thermometers, and beginning now to be found preferable even by the highest science of our own day, its multitudes of most excellent thermometers, not- withstanding. Thus the latest conclusion of the best geodesists, in conducting their modern standard-scale experiments, is expressed in the maxim, Have as little to do with variations of temperature as possible"; for temperature is an insidious influence whose actions and reactions men will hardly ever hear the last of, if once they let it begin to move, vary, or be higher in one place than in another, or at one time than another. We have seen, too, already, how this feature went close to the annihilation of the Cavendish experiment and its repetitions; and that the only source of safety was, not any attempt by power of fine thermometers to observe the temperature differences, and compute the corrections; but to cut down the varia- tions of temperature themselves. (C CHAP. IX.] 127 DENSITY AND TEMPERATURE. Quite similarly too, in every astronomical observatory, where uniformity of clock-rate is prized, it has been the last, and practically the best, thing to that end yet found out, that after the clockmaker has done everything which his art can do, in decreasing the disturbing effects which follow changes of temperature, by applying a so- called, and in truth a very considerably effective, “tem- perature compensation pendulum," there is always a further improvement that can be produced in the going of the clock, by superadding the steadying influence of sur- rounding and enclosing mass, simply to lessen the amount and slow the pace of any residual heat-changes for such pendulum to try its artificially supplied compensating W powers upon. Thus, at the great Observatory of Pulkova, near St. Petersburg, where they value an insight into small frac- tions of a second perhaps more than anywhere else in the wide world, the very able Russian astronomers have placed their chief clock in the "subterraneans," or cellars, of the observatory. Something of the same sort is now practised at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich; while the Paris Observatory has beat them all by placing its clock no less than 95' eet under the surface of the ground, in the very peculiar "caves caves" which exist there. Now, at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, there have been observations taken for many years of several large and very long-stemmed thermometers, whose bulbs have been let into the rock at various measured depths; and it is found that, notwithstanding the possibly disturbing effect of rain-water soaking down through fissures, there is such an astonishing power in a mass of stony matter to decrease temperature variations, that at the surface of the ground- The mean semi-annual variation of heat amounts to 50° Fahr. At three inches under the surface At three feet under the surface At six feet At twelve feet At twenty-four feet = 30° = 16° • در "" 10° 5༠ "" 1° "" At 95 feet, then, from the surface, in the case of the Paris Observatory, how very slight and innocuous to the most refined observation must be the variation of season- در 128 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. temperature! But how much more slightly affected still, and how admirably suited to a scientific observing-room, must not the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid be, seeing that it is shielded from the outside summer heat and winter cold by a thickness of nowhere less than 180 feet of solid masonry! There is not, in truth, in any country of Europe, there never has been erected, and it does not look much as if there ever will be erected, by any nation under the sun, a scientific observing-room for closet experiments that can at all be compared in the very leading requisites for such an institution, with the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid; if indeed, as we shall presently see, it had only been allowed fair play in modern times. Absolute Temperature of the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid. All the knowledge and advance, then, of the present day, so far from improving on, or altering with advantage, cannot too much commend, copy and adhere to, the uni- formity arrangements for rendering constant the tempera- ture of the Great Pyramid's coffer chamber. But what is the degree of temperature so rendered constant ? It is apparently a very characteristic degree, and one which possesses otherwise some singular recommendations. In the Great Pyramid, as before observed, there is a grand tendency for numbers, things, and principles going by fives;" and this seems carried out even in its tempera- ture, for it may be described, first of all, as a temperature of one-fifth; that is, one-fifth the distance between the freezing and boiling points of water, above the former. (( Observed Temperatures at, and near, the Great Pyramid. The first grounds for this belief were certain approxi- mate observations by M. Jomard, in the "Description de l'rgypte;" and which indicate something like 68° Fahr. as nearly the original temperature of the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid, if under both ventilation and other intended normal circumstances of its foundation. And 68° CHAP. IX.] 129 DENSITY AND TEMPERATURE. Fahr. is precisely a temperature, by, and according to, Nature of one-fifth. There is more, too, in the temperature numbers result- ing for the Pyramid, than the mere accident of the mean earth-surface temperature of its particular parallel of lati- tude; for that quantity would in truth seem to be very sensibly higher, if observed at the low level of the generally inhabited country thereabout, than this pyramidal quan- tity of one-fifth. Not only, for instance, did M. Jomard actually find it so, seeing that he measured 25° Cent. - 77° Fahr. for the lower part of the "well" of the Great Pyramid, and also for several of the tombs in the open, sun-stricken plain in the neighbourhood; but my own much more numerous observations in 1864-5 on the tem- perature of wells in and about the city of Cairo (in winter and spring, and at a depth sufficient to give as near an annual average as possible) yielded on a mean of 12 of them, 69.9 Fahr. A quantity which is also the identical result for the mean annual atmospheric temperature of the same city, as obtained by the Austrian Meteorological Society from five years of ordinary air observation, A. B:chan, Esq., Secretary of the Scottish Meteorological Society, reporting. Hence if the Great Pyramid was devised originally to stand, both in a latitude of 30° (see p. 59 to 61) and in a temperature of one-fifth, it was necessary that it should be mounted upon just such a hill as that whereon it does stand (and more particularly the King's Chamber level of it), in a sensibly cooler stratum of the atmosphere than the Egyptian and Pharaonic inhabited plains below; reducing thereby 69.9° to 68·0° Fahr. Thirty-seven years too after M. Jomard had measured in the King's Chamber the extra temperature of 716 Fahr. (i.e. 36 extra according to this subsequent theory), Colonel Howard-Vyse cleared out the two ventilating channels; and reported, without having heard any idea that the temperature had been theoretically too high- that instantly upon the channels being opened, the venti- lation re-established itself, and with a feeling to those in the chamber of most agreeable coolness. But no sooner had he left, than the Arabs most per- K 130 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. versely stopped up the ventilating channels again. And now steam-navigation and the overland route are pouring in, day after day and year after year, continually increasing crowds of some decorous, but more uproarious, and deter- mined Great Pyramid visitors; trooping with their candles and torches, and excited and various, but always heat- making (and sometimes stone-breaking, whether of walls or coffer), amusements into the King's Chamber granite hall. Wherefore in 1865 I found that chamber's tempera- ture more deranged than ever of old, or risen to no less than 75-2 Fahr. On one occasion indeed, it was so much as 75·7; and that was immediately after a large party with extra lights had had their whirling, stamping dances over, as they derisively declared, "old Cheops' tombstone;" and had indulged to the full their ignorant cursing of his ancient name, amid shouting and laughter, and the painful accom- paniment of the primeval coffer being banged with a big piece of building-stone swung by Arab arms; regardless that the vessel's note is said by high authorities in that line, to be some precious standard of musical tone. And all that time the temperature was only 74° in the Queen's Chamber below, and 73° at the dry-well mouth lower down still in the Pyramid. Simultaneous temperature numbers which evidently indicate an abnormal heat-elevating force at that instant in the King's Chamber. Temperature and Pressure Data for the Coffer's Weight and Capacity Measure. At the present moment, therefore, the coffer is no more of its right, or original, temperature, than its right and original mechanical size, when so much of it has been broken bodily away by the hammering of innumerable men of modern society. But the barometric pressure in the chamber happily defies such power of disturbance, and keeps, by the law of the atmosphere over all that region, expressively close to 30-000 Pyramid inches, though sensibly different from that in most other latitudes and many longitudes as well. Wherefore we correct our evidently perverted tem- CHAP. IX.] DENSITY AND TEMPERATURE. 131 perature observations of 1865 A.D., slightly by theory, and then have quite enough to justify us in assuming, as the original coffer and King's Chamber temperature of 4,040 years ago (and also what their temperature would be again were the ventilating channels reopened, and a strict prohibition issued in Scottish Covenanter phrase, against "promiscuous dancing" and all kinds of smoking)—the number 68°0 Fahr., or a temperature of exactly one-fifth. Hence at that temperature, and the atmospheric pressure which may be there assumed always close to 30:00 Pyramid inches, the coffer's 71,250 cubic Pyramid inches of standard capacity space, filled with pure water, shown now to be 57 times lighter than the mean earth-density of our planet globe, does form the grand, and cosmically earth commen- surable, weight standard of the ancient Great Pyramid's Metrological system. What precise quantity of numerical weight, in our reckoning of tons or pounds, that will amount to, and what subdivisions of its grand weight standard, as well as its capacity standard 57 times larger, the Pyramid system permits for commerce as well as science, we propose to take up further on, after having devoted one more chapter to examining certain of our foundational Pyramid data of modern measured lengths and angles, more rigidly than ever. K 2 132 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. CHAPTER X. CONFIRMATIONS, Of the Exterior, by Interior, measures of Great Pyramid. King's Chamber Measures specially accurate. OF F all parts of the Great Pyramid amenable to accurate linear measure, there are none presenting such advan- tages therefor as the King's Chamber, far away in its interior; because said chamber is-1. Equable in tempera- ture; 2. Unvisited by wind, sand or other such natural disturbances of the outside of the building; 3. Of simple rectangular figure (excepting an infinitesimal angle of con- vergence, and a rather larger, yet still barely observable, angle of inclination); 4. Constructed of squared, polished, hard, red granite; and 5. It exhibits the longest lines of any part of the Pyramid, both in that hard material, and in a horizontal position; with vertical end-pieces too, in rectangular emplacement, or exactly as most suitable to the modern refinements of "end-measure." (See Plates XVI. and XVII.) The earliest mensuration of any accuracy, and it is sur- prisingly accurate, which the world possesses of the length of the King's Chamber, is that by Professor Greaves in 1637, and amounted to 34-380 of his feet, i.e., 412:56 of his British inches. Now this is a quantity well worthy of remembrance, for- By Col. Howard-Vyse, in 1837, that chamber's length was stated to be, in his honest but rough manner. By Mr. Lane, in or near 1838, in the same sort of manner By Messrs. Aiton and Inglis in 1865, similarly from 411.00 412.50 411.7 to 412.1 · CHAP. X.] 133 CONFIRMATIONS. But by myself in 1865 it was given as follows, with particular care to reduce my inches to standard British Government inches of the present, and also, as it is believed, a long-past, historical day :- LENGTH. BREADTH. FIRST HEIGHT. LENGTH of of South side, near floor level, 11th March, first measure Do. 16th March, Do. Do. Do. second measure. first measure second measure. North side, March 11th, first measure second measure. third measure do. do. Mean of South side Mean of North side Mean LENGTH of both North and South sides Assumed true LENGTH on the whole . • • • North-west angle South-west BREADTH of King's Chamber near East end, first measure Do. second measure • Near West end Mean BREADTH of East and West ends Assumed true breadth on the whole · · · HEIGHT of King's Chamber near North-east angle of room North side • South side South-east angle North-east angle repeated The mean HEIGHT here=230·1, but is certainly smaller than it should be; for so many of the floor stones, from which the heights neces- sarily had to be measured, were disturbed and to some extent risen up (like the drawing of a tooth), as though in consequence of earth- quake disturbance. Hence the true quan- tity must be much nearer the greater, than the smaller, limit of the measured heights, and should probably be called Assumed true "C FIRST HEIGHT on the whole * 412.6 412.58 412.5 412.7 412.4 412.5 412.5 412.60 412.47 412-54 Brit. Irch. 412-13 Pyr. do. 412-132 Do. do. 206.4 206.2 206.3 = 206:30 Brit. Inch. 206.09 Pyr. do. 206.066 Do. do. 230.8 229.7 229.2 229.9 229.5 230.8 230.8 230.70 Brit. Inch. 230-47 Pyr. do. 230·389 Dc. do. 134 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. SECOND HEIGHT. The above, "the FIRST HEIGHT," or that from floor to ceiling, is so called to distinguish it from "the second height," or that of the granite walls themselves. Walls fully mea- surable now only in the N.W. corner of the room, where three of the floor-blocks are taken out, and show the wall there reaching down 5.0 inches beneath the floor level. This 5.0 inches completes the regularity of height for all the five courses of granite blocks forming the walls of the room; seeing that each of the four upper courses certainly measures 47.1 British inches, nearly, in height; and the first, or lowest of the five, though measuring only 421 from the floor, yet measures 47.1, if we add on the 5 inches observed at the only place where we can look at the bases of the walls underneath the floor level. All this justifies us in announ- cing as the " SECOND HEIGHT " of the King's Chamber, or the height of the four walls of it. pure and simple, in themselves (see Plate XVII.) as near to And as certainly lying between Mr. James Simpson's Sums of the Squares. With these measures before him, and paying more attention to those of them taken from rectangular sides than the more difficult practical case of the corners and diagonals, Mr. James Simpson, Edinburgh, adopting what he thought the most probable numbers for length, breadth, and height, computed the several diagonals, and prepared the following theoretical numbers for the room in Pyramid inches: King's Chamber Lines. Breadth Linear First height Length End Diagonals of Floor Side Solid Diagonal Simpson's First Numbers. 206.10 230.42 412.20 309.14 460.84 472-22 515.24 235-50 Brit. Inch. = 235-25 Pyr. do. 235.20 and 235·50 Do. do. C. Piazzi Smyth's Original Measures. 206.09 230.47 412.13 The latter Measures corrected by Simpson's Proportions. 206.066 230 389 412-132 CHAP. X.] 135 CONFIRMATIONS. The differences between Mr. Simpson's adopted linear numbers and my pure measures in the first division, it will be seen, amount to not more than 07 of an inch, or within the error of an average single measure by me, and much within those of some observers; indicating therefore that we may take his numbers as expressing well the true con- structed and measured dimensions of the apartment inter se, such as the breadth being exactly half of the length, and the height exactly half of the floor diagonal (as dis- covered also independently by Professor Hamilton L. Smith, U.S.A.), if indeed a good and locally conclusive reason can be shown for them; and this is what Mr. Simpson does most effectively in a series of commensu- rabilities of squares in very Pyramid numbers. Take, says he, half of the breadth, or 103·05, as a special unit of division; then test and divide therewith each of the above-recorded quantities as below; and then, squaring the results, you will have for the- Breadth ... First height Length ··· ... ... "" 29 .. • ... ... 2.000 whose square = 2.236 4.000 "" Or sum of squares for linear dimensions of K. Ch. 25 a Pyramid number. For the end diagonal Floor Side *** "" 3.000 whose square 4.472 4.582 "" er Jeffri رد 5 = 16 9 = 20 = 21 Or sum of squares for part diagonals of K. Ch. = 50 a Pyramid number. Solid diagonal = 5.000 whose square = 25 a Pyramid number. And the sum of the three Pyramid numbers = 100 a Pyramid number. And this is in the chamber whose walls have now been doubly proved to be composed of just 100 blocks of well- cut, squared, polished and evenly heighted, though very differently lengthed, granite. The manner in which the long fractions of some of the simple divisions clear themselves off, on taking the squares, is especially to be noted; and from a further theoretical consideration of his own (for the above theorem is one touching shape only, not size), Mr. Simpson considers that a more exact ultimate expression for the original sizes of 136 THE GREAT PYRAMID. [PART II. the various parts of the room should be in Pyramid inches- Breadth of King's Chamber ... Height (the First height, or floor to ceiling) Length .. Diagonal of end of King's Chamber ... floor side "" ··· • • ... ... ... ……. ··· ... ... ... "" Solid, or cubic diagonal, of King's Chamber Further, the grand division test of this so called King's Chamber • ... ... ... ... ... ... And the Second height, or the walls entire, from under the floor-plane up to the ceiling ... = 206·0659 =230.3886 = 412-1317 309.0988 = 460.7773 472.1562 =515-1646 103·0329 =235·3886. Hence it must now be abundantly apparent that, however limited the size of the King's Chamber may be, as com- pared with the whole building, it contains a remarkable power within itself for giving out accuracy of measure, to six places of numbers, nearly; and may in that manner form a foundation and a fulcrum in Pyramid research from which we may attain to higher things. Mr. F. Petrie's Measures. But subsequently to the above having been written, the world has been favoured with Mr. F. Petrie's measures of the King's Chamber, seventeen years after mine, and, on some points, far more numerous. How, therefore, do they represent the case? He confirms my view of the walls slightly converging towards the top, the whole chamber being slightly tilted over towards one corner; and that the base of the chamber was probably the most carefully adjusted, and accurately set out part of the whole. = Now at the top of the room, his mean length of North and South walls, reduced to Pyramid inches, only 411-598; but at the bottom 412-243, showing that my near-the-floor length of 412132 must exist somewhere between ceiling and floor, and much closer to the latter than the former, on any gradual incline between the two, according to the Pyramid's principle of limits, which I have already had occasion to set forth more than once. This principle, too, he seems himself to confess with regard to Ka CHAP. X.] 137 CONFIRMATIONS. the corners of the room; for having detected some minute errors of 1 to 4 minutes of angular deviation from 90°, he remarks, on page 81 of his larger book, "The errors change signs from base to top, so that each course must be a true right angle at some level up it;" or, as he may have in- tended, "so that some part of some course must be a true right angle, at some level up or down the wall's height. )) In short, almost the only point where I am here com- pelled to differ from him in any very positive manner is the conclusion on p. 82, par. 4, that because the floor of the King's Chamber has some of its component stones now, higher than others, that therefore "it never was plane or regular; and that in this respect it shared the character of the very variable floor of the passage that led to the chamber, no two stones of which are on the same level." This is all the more surprising a statement on his part, for, to say nothing of my many references to earthquake effects in altering the levels and azimuths of these and other stones thereabouts, he himself has the following excellent paragraph on his previous page 80:- "These openings or cracks (in the King's Chamber wall) are but the milder signs of the great injury that the whole chamber has sustained, probably from an earthquake, when every roof-beam was broken across near the South side; and since which the whole of the granite ceiling (weighing some 400 tons) is upheld solely by sticking and thrusting. Not only has this wreck overtaken the chamber itself, but in every one of the spaces above it, are the massive roof- beams either cracked across or torn out of the wall, more or less, at the South side; and the great Eastern and Western walls of lime-stone, between, and independent of which, the whole of these construction chambers are built, have sunk bodily. All these motions are yet but small,- only a matter of an inch or two, but enough to wreck the theoretical strength and stability of those chambers, and to make their downfall a mere question of time and earthquakes." Now when we add to all these details the frequency with which the middle and upper parts of buildings are more injured by earthquakes than the lower (of which some most striking examples in the late great earthquake at 138 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Charleston, S. C., U. S. Am., have been photographed and kindly presented to me by my two Pyramid friends there, the aged and venerable Dr. Robertson, and the younger M.D., Dr. Forrest), I suspect that a great deal of what Mr. F. P. believes himself to have discovered as to the builders of the Great Pyramid having become careless as their work ascended, was produced by the greater intensity of earthquake action, and even destruction at those higher levels, especially when floors were concerned. But not even that explains why he says so very little of the third cubical element of the room, height as a whole; and especially of the two heights of the King's Chamber, which form so striking a parallel with the two heights of the whole Great Pyramid itself; viz., that which may be computed from the Vyse elevated piece of pavement, and the other measured from the four corner sockets "made to sink in the rock;" Mr. Gass's "fundamental" base. The King's Chamber reacts on the Exterior of the Great Pyramid. If we now multiply the chamber's length in Pyramid inches (viz., 412-132) by the special Pyramid numbers 5 × 5, and find it to yield 10303·29+ &c., or the same row of ciphers with the decimal point differently placed, as Mr. Simpson's touchstone line of Pyramid commensurability, we may then ask further whether that larger, absolute quantity of length so implied, has any particular value or meaning outside that King's Chamber wherein it is now found. Then comes the remarkable answer, that the area of the square base of the Great Pyramid (determined already independently, at the mean socket-floor level, to have a side = 913105 Pyramid inches) is equal to the area of a circle whose diameter = 10303:30, within + 01 of the same Pyramid inches. (See Plate XX., Equality of Areas, No. 1.) Thus bringing up again, though in a slightly different shape, viz., areas instead of circumferences, that practical squaring of the circle, which was one of the chief objects of the Great Pyramid's external figure; and estab- lishing thus a simple, but most intellectual, relation between CHAP. X.] 139 CONFIRMATIONS. the apparent utter diversities of a small, long-shaped rectangular room on one side, and the one side, and the square-based, originally sharp-pointed, mighty Great Pyramid on the other. Again, considering Pyramid inches in the King's Chamber to signify Pyramid cubits outside the building, the following results came out correct to six places of figures :—Take the length of the King's Chamber 412-132 to express the diameter of a circle. Compute, by the best methods of modern science, the area of that circle; throw that area into a square shape, and find the length of a side of such square. The answer will be 365-242 Pyramid cubits; a quantity which not only represents the mean of all the measures of the length of the Great Pyramid's base-side, at the mean socket-floor level (see Chap. III., pp. 23-27), but defines the number of mean solar days in a mean solar tropical year.* (See Plate XXI.) Next consider the same King's Chamber's measured quantity (and measured, published too, in my "Life and Work at the Great Pyramid," be it remembered, before this theory came out), viz. 412:132, as the side of a square; find its area, and throw that (by modern science as before) into a circular shape. The radius of such a circle will be found = 232.520; or in Pyramid cubits, the vertical height of the Great Pyramid according to the mean of all the measures; and also very close, taken as in Pyramid inches, to the mean of the two heights, viz., those "first and second"-heights, which the architect apparently *The following may serve as an example of a practical mode of perform- ing thie little calculation, with the usual tables of logarithms to seven places: 412.132 assumed the diameter of a circle Find its area, 1st, by squaring = ... 2nd, by adding log. 365-242+ &c. Nat. number of Log. ... Log. area of assumed circle and nd also of the square sought Find side of said square by ✔ ... = 4 ... ... log. 2.6150363 x 2 5.2300726 9.8950899 5.1251625 -2 2.5625812 140 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. found it necessary to introduce into the King's Chamber to enable it to typify all he required. The above calculations may be easily performed either by arithmetic direct, or by logarithms, but including always the precisely true value of π (see our "Key the First," p. xv.); and the following is how the Pyramid architect further exhibits that π quantity in one and the same King's Chamber:-Take the circuit of either of the principal walls of the chamber in their entirety of granite, i.e., north or south wall, and divide by the length; the result is π, equably, so far as practical measures can go, with modern mathematics. Taking therefore, for this purpose, as the height of the rooms, the "Second Height," viz., 235-243; the circuit of either north or south wall is- 412 132+235.243 + 412·132 +235·243 1294.750 and 1294-750412.1323.14159+ &c. π, Q.E D. or presents to us, we may now say in plain words without stint, "the first Key of Knowledge of the Great Pyramid.” Ante-Chamber Symbolisms. We have by no means finished with these most accurate numbers of the King's Chamber yet,—but it may be agreeable to many readers to see from another side how gradually, and continuously, though approxi- matively only, those numbers there discovered were led up to by previous acts and deliberate arrangements of the architect. To reach the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid we have to pass through the Ante-chamber; and we have already gathered some useful hints from there, yet far from all that it was capable of affording. One of our gatherings, pp. 120, 121, was from the three rude-curved hollows in the higher, or western, granite wainscot. There are no such hollows on the eastern side, and it is moreover cut off at top to an absolutely lower level than what the western hollows descend to. Why was the east wainscot so cut down; evidently, from its perfection of work, by the original builders? CHAP. X.] 141 CONFIRMATIONS. The architect is dead, but you may still virtually ques- tion him, in such a building of number, weight, and measure, by ascertaining how much? What height, for instance, was the eastern wainscot cut down to? So asked the late lamented Major U. A. Tracey, R.A., in 1868; and my measures in "Life and Work" answered his studious examination of them at Gibraltar, with 103·0; since assumed, within the limits of the measures, =103·033 Pyramid inches. Why, said he, that is half of the King's Chamber breadth, and must therefore be important. Then examining further, he recognized that the floor of the ante-chamber was recorded by me, though by no previous traveller, as partly in granite and partly in limestone; that the length of the former portion, given in four different places as between 102.5 and 1036 inches, must be intended, though roughly (as all features of this ante-chamber are rough and approximative only) for the 103·033 also; and in that case here were two similar, and of the place characteristic, lengths of granite placed in rectangular position to each other. That, he added, indicates square measure; but what is the circular equal, in area, of such a square ? The length of the whole ante-chamber was then looked for, and found in my measures, thus, in Pyramid inches: 116.2 116.7 116.1 116.2 116-2 116.2 Mean = 116·27 or 116.26. This 116.26 being made up of 103-03 of granite and 13.23 of limestone; 116-260, Captain Tracey pointed out, is the diameter of a circle having precisely equal area (up to its last figure at least) to a square of 103-033 in the side. Whereupon the Abbé and Chanoine Moigno exclaimed in his scientific journal Les Mondes, "Who could pretend now that the diversity of the materials forming the floor, 142 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. and their relations and differences of length, were a brute accident on the part of the ancient architect of 4,000 years ago?" And still less when the following additional features are produced by these numbers, 10303 and 116·26, in their Pyramid positions, and Pyramid inch units of measure, there :— (1.) 103·033 × 5 (Pyramid number) 515.165; or is the length in Pyramid inches of the cubic diagonal of the King's Chamber. (2.) 103·033 × 50 (the number of masonry courses of the Pyramid the chamber stands upon) = 5151-65; or is in Pyramid inches the length of the side of square of equal area to a triangle of the shape and size of the Great Pyramid's vertical meridian section. (3.) 116.260 × 2 =232.520; or is, in Pyramid inches, the mean, nearly, of the First and Second Heights of the King's Chamber. (4.) 116·260 × π = 365·242 + &c.; or shows the number of mean s lar days in a mean solar tropical year. (5.) 116.260 × π × 5 × 5 913105; or is, in Pyramid inches, the length of a side of the base of the Great Pyramid (at the mean socket-floor level) from a mean of all the measures. (6.) 116.260 x 50 = 58130; or is, in Pyramid inches, the ancient vertical height of the Great Pyramid, above the same mean socket-floor level, from a mean of all the measures. Hence, as the earlier of the above cases, including the 103-033 number, show,-the uses of the east wainscot of ante-chamber, in being lower than the west one, have been most remarkable. But can any object be assigned to the west wainscot being of the greater height it has been found to be by measure, viz., 1118 Pyramid inches? Being so signal a feature of the chamber, and executed expensively and solidly, though, as usual with the ante- chamber, not with microscopic refinement of work (see Dr. Grant's orders of surfaces of granite, in Great Pyramid, Plate XVIII.)—we may be sure that the architect intended something by it; and this is what Professor H. L. Smith has drawn forth :-Divide said height by 100; and call the original quantity, now 1·118, possibly 111803; then, Breadth of King's Chamber × 1∙11803 = Height of the same. Now that height is a very peculiar quantity, as already set forth in Mr. Simpson's sums of the squares; and all the more to be attended to now that the realities of the Great Pyramid are coming to be appreciated; for hitherto the King's Chamber has been carelessly described, by too CHAP. X.] 143 CONFIRMATIONS. many of our educated travellers, as merely a double cube; a simple notion of architectural science which I believe they derive from very long subsequent Greek buildings. But the designer of the Great Pyramid here sets up a notice, that if the breadth of the King's Chamber 1, then the first height thereof is not to be the same, but to be 1·11803. Let us try it in numbers :- 206·066 × 1·11803 = 230.389, or the exact quantity, to within the possibilities of measure, attained for Mr. Simpson's First height, p. 135; shown there, and subsequently, to be intimately connected with references to the size of the whole building. Yet there may be those who object to this one case only, of a number not being taken at once as it measures in Pyramid inches, but after division by 100! The objection is not of much force, seeing that the number chosen is so very round and even a Pyramid number; equivalent merely to shifting the decimal point two places; and that the ante-chamber has many purposes to serve, both theoretical and practical; all of which can only be included in some such manner. But there is also more direct justification than this, in that we find the division by 100 used again in this room, and touching height also. The measured height of the whole ante-chamber, floor to ceiling, is 149 3 or 4 Pyramid inches; and why? Because that number represents the length of the socket floor base-side of Great Pyramid plus the socket floor vertical height thereof, each of them divided by 100; as thus: 9131 + 5813 100 91.31 + 58.13149.44. Nor is this a mere chance coincidence in whole sums, for two remarkably pertinent reasons. First. Professor H. L. Smith has shown that the whole distance is appropriately divided by the centre of the lower, and regularly formed, component of the granite leaf, so as to represent from there, upward to the ceiling, 913 Pyramid inches Pyramid's socket-floor base-side 100; and from the same centre downwards to the floor, 581, or the Pyramid's similar vertical height ÷ 100. 144 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. The latter measure, as recorded by me, was indeed too short by nearly half an inch; but that was presently found to be already explained by Plate XI., Vol II., of "Life and Work" (which involuntarily shows for the date of its publication when Pyramid theory had not advanced to any of these refinements), that the stone in the floor under the leaf, has been disturbed by counter pressure or dis- located by medieval earthquake shocks; so that it is at least 0.3 of an inch, at present, above its fellows. Second. In angular confirmation of the above, the venerable and still acute-minded Mr. W. C. Pierrepont (of Pierre Pont Manor, Jefferson County, N.Y.) has pointed out, that if a model of a meridian section of the Great Pyramid be conceived to stand on the flooring of the ante- chamber and its passages, and to touch with its apex the ceiling of the ante-chamber, vertically over the centre of the granite leaf, then, North foot of such pyramidal section rests on the great step at the head of the grand gallery, exactly there where the ramp-line continued comes through; and South foot of such pyramidal section rests on the granite floor of the passage leading from the ante-chamber onwards to the King's Chamber; and is defined there to within a tenth of an inch by a "joint" line in the granite; the only joint line too in that passage, but duly chronicled in Life and Work," Vol. II., in 1867. (C From that joint-line in the floor, then, the vertical angle to the ceiling of ante-chamber immediately over the unique and most important, granite leaf's centre 51° 51′; or the Great Pyramid's angle of side-rise. And from the same joint-line to the centre of the lower stone of the granite leaf (which divides the whole height, into base-side and vertical height 100) the angle is 26° 18′ nearly, or the angle of all the inclined passages of the Pyramid; and concerning which angle, there will be much more to be said by-and-by. K Inches in the Granite Leaf. The granite leaf, therefore, in the ante-chamber, besides being so strange a structure in itself (standing all across CHAP. X.] 145 CONFIRMATIONS. the room between the floor and ceiling), is hedged about, as it were, with important symbols connected with the scientific theory of the Great Pyramid; and now we come to a still more essential and explanatory part which it has been found to serve therein. Some objectors to the Pyramid scientific theory have said, "We do not admit the reality of your Pyramid inches with its original builders, when you can only get such inches by yourselves subdividing immense lengths. But show us a single such inch, and we may believe." Whereupon Major U. A. Tracey, R.A., pointed out that such single inch is actually marked, and in a Pyramid manner, on, or rather by means of, the above granite leaf in the ante-chamber; and it comes about thus: In that small apartment its grand symbol on the south wall is the already-mentioned illustration of a division into five and if the symbol had virtue enough to extend into and indicate some features in the next or King's Chamber (as in illustrating its now undoubted number of five wall-courses), why should it not typify something in its own chamber as well? But what is there, in the ante- chamber, divided into five? "The Great Pyramid's own scientific, earth-commensuric, cubit," answers Major Tracey; "for here it is so divided in the shape of this projecting boss on the granite leaf, just five inches broad. And further, that fifth part of that 25 inch cubit of the Great Pyramid's symbolical design, is divided into five again; for the thickness of this remarkable boss is, though roughly, 1-5th of its breadth. So there you have the division of the peculiar Pyramid cubit into 5 x 5 inches." (See Plate XV.) But this most telling yet modest boss was not described and pictured by me with proper correctness in "Life and Work"; I having, unfortunately, made it there much too high, too accurately rectangular at its lowest corner line, too sharply and neatly defined all round; and the work- manship fine, instead of, as it is, surprisingly rough. This too I am enabled now to say positively, having been kindly furnished by Mr. Waynman Dixon with a cast of L 146 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. the boss in Portland cement, taken by him in the Great Pyramid in 1872; and still another cast of it in plaster was obligingly sent to me by Dr. J. A. S. Grant, of Cairo, in 1874. The one inch thickness, however, and five inches breadth, of the thickest and central part being fairly measurable along the best line of each cast-boss for measuring, viz., its steep, though not absolutely rectangular, lower edge-they remain untouched and perfectly suitable for Major Tracey's analogy, which is further supported as follows:-The boss, a flat bas-relief one inch thick or protruding from the stone, is on the north side of the upper of the two blocks forming that "granite leaf" which crosses the ante-chamber near its northern end. (Compare Chapter IX., pages 120, 121.) Except- ing the presently broken, or boulder-line, state of the upper surface of the top stone, the formation of the whole leaf is regular, rectangular, and symmetrical; and the working of it masterly, though rough, i.e., hammer-dressed, but very finely for that method, and sensibly smoother than the walls of the ante-chamber. (See Plate XVIII., for Dr. Grant's orders of surfaces.) Why then is the boss not even approximately in the middle of the granite leaf, or in the centre be- tween the two sides of the very narrow apartment con- taining it? (only 41.21 inches broad between the granite wainscots.) My measures of 1865 (Mr. F. Petrie's, p. 78, has none) show that the boss is just one inch away on one side of the centre; and as it will be elsewhere shown that it was a Great Pyramid method to indicate a small, but important, quantity by an excentricity to that amount in some far grander architectural feature-we cannot but accept this measured excentricity of the boss as an additional Pyramid memorial of the very thing which is being called for by the sceptical just now; viz., one single, little inch memorialised by the builders of the most colossal piece of architecture the world has ever beheld. (See Plate XV.) All the more decidedly too, when as Mr. St. John Vincent Day has since then shown, that very excentric position of the boss, by the amount of just one inch, has enabled the distance from its centre to the eastern end of the leaf itself CHAP. X.] 147 CONFIRMATIONS. . in its well-cut groove in the granite wainscot to be, within the limits of mensuration errors, just a whole Pyramid cubit = 25.025 British inches, or something very near to it indeed.* So that exactly here, where every would-be- enterer into the King's Chamber must bow the head- there is suspended over him the whole cubit, its fifth part and its twenty-fifth part or inch unit; which, though so small, yet is it as securely monumentalized in this vast building, as anything else of much larger size : clearly, too, though roughly; but in a manner which has lasted up to this very day. Thus much does the granite leaf for linear measure ; but it indicates a beginning of capacity and cubic measure also, for Major Tracey again shows that the lower stone of the granite leaf, that this lower stone, I say, which is fairly * My measures say, p. 100, Vol. II. of "Life and Work Centre of BOSS to East side of ante-chamber room Centre of Boss to West side of ante-chamber room P. 98, Vol. II., depth of groove in East wall ... ... ••• ... ... ... ... ... Whole distance from centre of BOSS to East end of granite leaf in its groove, roughly ... "" British inches. 21.5 195 4.0 ... ... .. But again, on p. 93, and also p. 95, the grooved breadth of the room is deduced in British inches at (its ungrooved breadth, or the breadth between the two wainscots, and in so far, all the visible breadth of the granite leaf, being nearly 41.2 inches) ... Add 1 inch of excentricity of the BOSS from the East wall Whole distance of centre of BOSS from the inside of the granite leaf's eastern flat groove in granite --- • = 25.5 Half 24.034 + 1.000 = 25.034 48.067 The BOSS on the granite leaf is, in general shape, much like certain bosses or lugs on the ends of old Sarcophagi; and Dr Grant has recently discovered some large ones, apparently for lifting purposes, on some of the granite blocks of the "Hollows of Construction; " but their measures, which is the test point in the Great Pyramid, are entirely different; appa- rently accidental, and without meaning. Further measures of the BOSs on the granite leaf, in a letter from Dr. J. A. S. Grant, Cairo, Dec. 6, 1874, describing a long and hard-working night spent in measuring inside the Great Pyramid, in company with the Rev. F. R. A. Glover and Mr. Beecher :- "Then we measured the BOSS, and found it to jut out from its stone onc inch; and also to be removed from the centre of the breadth of its stone exactly one inch; measurements which corroborate former measurements." L 2 148 THE GREAT PYRAMID. [PART II. dressed, rectangular,* and the one on which the upper stone with its boss divisions of the cubit rests, expresses a notable division of the capacity measure of the coffer. For it presents us, within the walls of the ante-chamber, with a fourth part of that coffer vessel's contents; or with the veritable "corn quarter" of old, and which is still the British quarter corn-measure, both by name and fact and practical size. π in the Granite Leaf. The above conclusion for the lower stone of the leaf has been tested by various persons, and found to come very close to the numbers recorded; but quite recently a new idea was sent to me by the Rev. C. W. Hickson, to the purport that the whole granite leaf contained, of cubic inches, a number equal to π multiplied by 10,000. I tried it upon my own measures, and was rashly about to con- demn the notion utterly, when looking again at the latest and most detailed letter I had had from Egypt touching the granite leaf-there was a view expressed there which * My ante-chamber measures, as condensed on p. 37 of the 13th vol. of the "Edinburgh Astronomical Obs.," give GRANITE LEAF, thickness North to South, on East side West side "" ... ... ... • ... ... ……. ... Height of lower stone Height of upper stone, from its straight, level base under the boss, to its curved, or curvilinear, or broken and boulder form above it from 18.0 to 23.5 41.21 + Breadth East to West, between the open walls between the leaf's grooves = 48·05 + x Further measures of GRANITE LEAF by Mr. Waynman Dixon, announced in December, 1875:- + x Visible breadth of leaf between walls North of it South of it Real breadth of leaf, or of space between groove ends, "" "" "" ... at top Thickness of leaf, North to South "" groove-hollows, North to South, at top Distance from centre of boss to East wall-face... East wall-face to groove end .. ... ··· ••• ... • ••• = 16·0 27.5 to 28.0 * ……… ... ... .. ... 15.4 inches. ... ... 41.0 41.5 39 33 = 48.9 15.0 16.25 21.5 3.25 19.5 29 29 centre of boss to West wall-face... The difference of thickness between the leaf's general thickness and the grooves, which was thought in "Life and Work" to be filled with cement -is considered by Mr. Dixon to be filled by an extra edge thickness of the granite leaf itself. CHAP. X.] 149 CONFIRMATIONS. seemed, involuntarily and quite unknown to the writer of it, to meet this case completely. With any straight-sided rectangular solid, we have merely to multiply together breadth, thickness, and height, in linear inches, to obtain the contents in cubical inches. Now the granite leaf is a straight-sided, rectangular solid in every part except the top of its upper stone; which top is irregular, curvilinear, and I had always supposed broken; wherefore the original cubic contents could only be ob- tained by assuming a height large enough to include at least the highest fragment remaining; and that would be, measuring upwards from the bottom of the lowest stone, to tip top of the upper of the two stones composing the leaf, 51.3 inches: the breadth of the sub-aërial, or visible part of the leaf, being without any doubt 412, and the mean thickness 15.7 inches. But the multiplication of these quantities gives a number so much greater than 10,000 7, leaving it in the second place of figures, that the theorem cannot be main- tained for a moment by them. If indeed we next take the smallest height of the leaf, which is near to 45'8, the mean of that and the greater height, gives 48:55, possibly inclining to 48.57; and then between these two quantities, the announced 10,000 π comes out most plainly as 31415·9, &c. But have we any right to use a near mean of the greatest and least heights of the curvilinear summit of the granite leaf, in our inquiry as to how many cubic inches the architect originally intended it to represent ? Not the slightest, if that curvilinear summit is the result of modern breakages; and I, having expressed a belief that it was broken mediævally, if not recently, in "Life and Work," in 1867, think myself now specially called on to publish, that a totally opposite view was com- municated to me in a very positive manner by a practical. engineer in December, 1875. The engineer was Mr. Waynman Dixon, and the very words of his letter are as follows:- "The more I see of this remarkable stone or granite leaf, the more I am convinced that the upper irregular part 150 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. is in its original condition, not broken away by specimen- mongers or Arabs." In that case, the leaving an original, natural, indefinite, curved surface on the top of a solid, whose other sides. were worked by man in accurate rectangular planes, may be taken to indicate an intention of exhibiting the naturally and externally indefinite end of the fractional number (see p. xv. under the head of Key the First): at the same time that the nearest practical amount of it in whole inches, when multiplied by 10,000, was formally shown by the mean height of the boulder-surface side, combined with the simple measures of the other sides. Mr. Flinders Petrie does indeed express on his pages. 78 and 79 the utmost contempt for both the boss, the granite leaf, and those who have theorized upon their measures. The boss, says he, is merely a rough pro- jection like innumerable others that may be seen, left originally for the purpose of lifting the blocks. But he does not tell us where these innumerable others were to be seen, in any position to compete with the symbolisms of the above particular boss, nor what they measured. He does indeed mention minute traces, just discover- able by side candle-light, of where one existed on one of the walls of the ante-chamber, and several on the walls of the King's chamber, but not one of them in a uniquely important position, and none of them measuring even approximately anything approaching to the boss on the granite leaf. While that boss, he allows does measure on its outer face between 47 and 5.2 inches wide, and between 0.94 and 1·10 inch thick. And his limits of the measures of each of the two component blocks of the granite leaf are similarly confirmatory of mine. The 35th Pyramid Masonry Course. But I must now confine myself, in this chapter at least, to only one case more; making a new use of the ante- chamber length, 116-26 Pyramid inches; because it identifies that chamber with the very vitals of construc- tion of the whole Great Pyramid. The manner in which the Pyramid mass is built in CHAP. X.] 151 CONFIRMATIONS. horizontal courses of squared stone extending, each at its own thickness, through and through the whole building, has already been mentioned at p. 172; and I may now add, that the thicknesses of these courses rapidly diminish in ascending, so that from about 50 inches at the base they dwindle down to about 27 inches at the 34th course; but there they immediately and suddenly thicken, so that the 35th course begins with a 50-inch thickness once again. (See Plate IX.) Now this is a tremendously important fact; for that thick, 35th, course of masonry is conspicuous on every side of the Great Pyramid. The French measures of the courses in 1799, showed it accurately; travellers with an educated eye, may see it miles off; even my smallest photographs placed under a microscope invariably show it; and the extra amount of weight which the builders had to raise in the said 35th course as compared with the 34th was, on that account solely, about 40,000 tons. What then was the extraordinarily important thing com- pleted in the 35th course, that the builders honoured it with such extra majesty. (See the tables on pp. 76, 78.) Whether the courses of the once-existing, and then out- side, casing-stones corresponded with these inner structural courses may be disputed; but ever since said casing- stones were removed, or for 1,000 years past, the world has had the opportunity of seeing the sudden leap in thickness which the courses take at the 35th, and no one ever guessed the reason until Professor Hamilton L. Smith, of Hobart College, Geneva, New York, produced, if not all the reasons, at least a sufficient one, and probably chief one, as thus The said 35 courses attain very approximatively a vertical height above the socket base of the Great Pyramid of 11626 Pyramid inches, or ten times the length of the already proved micro-cosmic ante-chamber. But what then? Simply and completely this, that at that point of height in the middle of any side, the horizontal distance to the vertical axis of the Pyramid is 3652-42, &c., Pyramid inches. That is, when divided by 10, it records in those particular units the number of days in the solar tropical 152 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. year; a grand physical fact which the profane Egyptians did not then know, nor any other men at that time on earth by their own finding out, While, further, without any division at all, two straight lines are given to show the proportion of the circumference of a circle to its diameter; for 3652-42 1162.60 3.14159, &c., π. = And finally, 11626·02, or ten times the height of the 35th course, or 100 times the length of the ante-chamber, or in fact twice 5,813 Pyramid inches, i.e., the vertical height of the Great Pyramid, represents the mean distance of the Sun from the Earth, in terms of that grand natural quantity Divinely set before the consideration of Job (see our Chap. IV., p. 41), " the breadth of the earth"; or its measure from pole to pole. Nor is this the only instance of the ante-chamber's numbers when taken in Pyramid inches, distinguishing themselves in the proportions of the sizes and distances. of those orbs of the solar system which most concern man in his physical life on earth as ordained by his Creator. High gravitational astronomy does not, indeed, usually take account of size, only of mass (weight) reduced ideally to a point, of any celestial orb;-though the space throughout which such mass is distributed, and the amount of surface which it thereby affords, must be everything in the daily practical question of man's procuring food for himself on his Divinely appointed terrestrial abode. Hence, although Mr. George F. Chambers has collected in his "Handbook of Descriptive Astronomy "* some very curious. commensurabilities between the distances and diameters of Sun and planets, by the number of “108 nearly,”—they have not yet been much honoured in scientific society; though too they are facts in the celestial arrangements of the present period of universal time; certain to last sensibly the same, for more thousands of years than human history has yet endured; and of extreme anthro- pological importance. They seem, moreover, to be alluded to in the ante-chamber by the length of the remarkable vertical groovings of its south wall, shown on p. 113, to be close to 107.4 Pyramid inches long. But now we wind up * 3rd Edition, Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1878. CHAP. X.153 Σ.] CONFIRMATIONS. ] this Chapter and "Part" as promised, and in deference to the following— Compendium of the Principal and Leading Measures connected with the INTERIOR OF THE GREAT PYRAMID, shortly stated. For their application, see Plates VI. to XVII. inclusive. ENTRANCE INTO GREAT PYRAMID. ... This is, at present, simply the fragmentary upper end of a beautifully executed hollow passage-way, inclining thence downwards and inwards. It is situated on the Northern flank of the Pyramid, in a very broken part of the masonry now, at a height above the ground, rudely and imperfectly considered about But emerged originally on the finished side of the Great Pyramid at a height above the pavement=668; and above the Mean socket floor, by F. P. .. Horizontally inside (or S. of) North edge of ancient Pyramid casing, by F. P., at pavement level equals 524; and at mean socket floor level Distance of the vertical plane of the passage, Eastward of centre of the Pyramid's Northern flank, as between its E. and W. ends, by H. V. =294, and by F. P. Height of said doorway, transversely to length of the passage-way, of which it is the outer, Northern, end... Breadth of the same ENTRANCE PASSAGE AND ITS FURTHER INTERIOR, DESCENDING PROGRESS. ... Angle of descent of floor of the passage, Southwards Length along that downward, and Southward, slope, from the outside flank of Pyramid to a beginning of the passage floor proper And thence to its junction lower down with the first ascending passage inside the building….. Thence to Caliph Al Mamoun's broken hole Thence, chiefly by excavation through solid rock, but still in one straight, downwardly inclined line as before, to the Well's lower mouth ... Thence, to the end of the inclined and full bored part of the passage Thence, in horizontal direction to the North wall of Subterranean Chamber Whole length of said descending Entrance Passage Part length, or from "the 2170 mark" in the upper part of the passage, to its falling into Subterranean Chamber ... ... ... ... • ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... • ... .. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... • ... ... = Pyr. inches. 588 699. 548. 287. 47.24 41.56 26 124. 986. 214. 2582. 296. 324. = 4402. = 4051· 28 154 [PART II. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Bore of passage always rectangular in transverse section, and in the inclined part, as with the door-way = 47·24 × 41.56 inches. Bore, in horizontal subterranean region; for height breadth "" SUBTERRANEAN, UNFINISHED, CHAMBER. Flat finished ceiling, length East to West breadth North to South Depth of walls from said ceiling, variously 40 to 160. Floor not yet cut out of the rock, and walls not full depth. Small blind horizontal hole or passage commencement, penetrating into the rock Southwards, from South wall of this chamber, low down; length height breadth "" "} ... The Northern wall of this chamber is, according to F. P., South of the central axis of Gr. P., produced down- wards, by 40; and the Southern wall by 366. Breadth of gallery above ramps "} "" ... "" THE ASCENDING PASSAGE; (Lime-stone) Starts, in an upward and Southward direction, from a point on the descending entrance-passage, 988 inches inside the ancient building; and the first 180 inches of its length is still filled up with fast-jammed granite plugs. The whole length, from the descending passage, up to junction with, and entrance into Gr. Gall. By F. P., the distance is But floor distance of this pass. only ... "" "" "" "" ALSO, AND FURTHER ASCENDING. Length of inclined floor line, from N. to South wall But according to Mr. F. Petrie ... Measured angle of the floor's ascent, Southwards... Transverse height of the passage bore, now 47 to 59; •A ... anciently Breadths now, in broken state from 42 to 60; anciently GRAND GALLERY; (Lime-stone) "" Measured angle of ascent, Southwards Vertical height, at any one average point Overlappings of roof, in number Overlappings of the walls, in number Ramps, height=21; breadth=20 Pyramid inches. Breadth of floor between ramps 11 ... between 1st overlap 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 19 ... ?? ... ... ... ... 4. ... 4. ... 1 ··· ... ••• ++ ... ••• ** ... ... .. ... ... ... *** ... ... ... ... ... ... .. *** ... 4 ……. ... ... ... : ... ... ... ... .. ... 44 ... || ... Pyr. inches. ... ⠀ ⠀ 11 11 11 = 1542 4 1545.0 1482.7 26 8 || || 36. 33. || 552. 325' 633⚫ 31. 29. 47.24 41.56 1882. 1881.8 26 17 339.5 36' 7. 42' 82. 76.2 70.4 64.6 58.8 53.0 CHAP. X.] 155 CONFIRMATIONS. Breadth of gallery between 6th overlap 7th Great step at 1813 7, near Southern end of gallery, vertical "9 "" height of North edge (Place of said North edge is, according to Mr. F. P., exactly between the Northern and Southern halves of Gr. Pyr.) length along the flat top, from North to ... "" Extreme length, North to South 11 ••• ... ... South Lower and further exit, or South doorway-passage, height breadth ... • length horizontally from G. G. to ante-chamber Upper exit, at top of Eastern wall at its Southern end, height 33; breadth 20, nearly and roughly. 19 breadth ... ... ... ANTE-CHAMBER (L. S. and Granite.). ••• ·· ... breadth at top, East to West height "" ... ... Eastern Wainscot, granite, high Western Wainscot, granite, high Granite (density = 0.479, earth's density = 1) begins to be employed in the course of the length of this room, and in the Granite-Leaf which crosses it, at various distances, as 8 to 24 inches, from Nerth wall, in floor, and side walls. ... ... Number of vertical grooves on South Wall... Length of each of them ... ... ……… • ... ... • ··· Exit passage, horizontal, from ante-chamber, Southward to King's Chamber, in granite all the way; length height at the North end South end ... ... KING'S CHAMBER (Granite). Structure entirely in granite, form rectangular, length breadth ... .. ... ... ... ··· • ··· ... first height, floor to ceiling 2nd height from base of walls to ceiling The walls, in 5 equal height courses, and composed of 100 blocks. ... ... :: ... .. • ... ▼ W W W W .... Base of walls, by F. P., above mean socket floor Floor of chamber, by F. P., above mean socket floor = 2796· and North wall, south of central axis of Pyr. by 331. The hollow coffer therein; measures given at pp. 107, 110. North-air channel, length to exterior of Pyramid South-air channel 2091. Supposed height of their exits there... 3972. The lower parts of these air-channels just before entering the King's Chamber, are bent at a large angle in the vertical, and the Northern one is further tortuous in azimuth; so that they cannot be used as a means of looking through to the daylight sky, from the King's Chamber, though they may ventilate it admirably when cleared of modern obstructions. Pyr. inches, 47.2 41.4 36. 61. 43.7 41.4 52.5 116.26 65.2 149.3 103.03 111.80 100.2 43.7 42.0 41.4 4 107.4 412.132 206.066 230.389 235.350 1717. = 1722. 156 THE GREAT PYRAMID. [PART II. The "hollows," or needlessly called "Chambers" of Construction above this King's Chamber, are of the same length and breadth of floor, but not above 30 to 50 inches high, except the uppermost of the five, which is angular, or gable, roofed. (See Plate XVI.) HORIZONTAL PASSAGE TO QUEEN'S CHAMBER. Length from North end of Grand Gallery, Southward, to the beginning of low part of the passage under G.G. floor thence to low portion of floor thence to North wall of Queen's Chamber Average height of longest part 46'34, of Southern deep part 67.5; breadth Whole distance from North wall of Grand Gallery to South wall of Queen's Chamber د. Length from East to West Breadth from North to South Height at North and South walls in centre of gable ridge of ceiling Grand Niche in the East wall; height ... "" "" "" QUEEN'S CHAMBER (Lime-stone). "" ... Ma ... "" ... 19 ... ... ... "} در "" ... ... ... ··· ... ... ... .. ... ... ... "2 breadth, greatest, below at 1st overlap 2nd 3rd 4th "" Excentricity of Niche, or displacement of its vertical axis Southward from central vertical line of the East wall Air channels exist in North and South walls; but blinded anciently inside, by a solidly left, uncut-out thickness of 5 inches of stone; and their out-crop on the Pyramid flank now, not known. ... *** Wall courses, number of, equally heighted all round up to the level of the top of North and South walls... Additional wall courses in the upper gables of East and West walls, not yet examined. Wall courses, by Mr. W. Dixon, approximately- 1st and lowest, in height 2nd from floor, in height 3rd 4th 5th 6th "} "" Central ridge of roof, by Mr. F. Petrie, is equi-distant from North and South sides of Great Pyramid's base. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... "", "" ··· ... • ……. •• ••• ... THE WELL; (Lime-stone) Enters near North-west corner of Grand Gallery; shaft square in bore; measures in length of side of bore Distance of centre of entrance from the North end of Grand Gallery Vertical depth to grotto in the rock, under masonry of Pyramid Further vertical depth, with some horizontal distance, to junction with the lower part of the entrance passage near the Subterranean Chamber ··· ... ... ... • ... ... Pyr. Inches. 217.8 = 1085.5 216.1 41.15 = 1725' 226.7 205.8 182.4 244.4 183.0 61.30 52.25 41.50 30.00 19.60 25.000 6 36. 34. 32. 30. 26. 24. 28. 34. 702. = 1596- : PART III. NATIONAL WEIGHTS AND MEASURES, ALSO THOSE OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. CHAPTERS XI To XV. (( LET ALL THE NATIONS BE GATHERED TOGETHER, AND LET THE PEOPLE BE ASSEMBLED : WHO AMONG THEM CAN DECLARE THIS, AND SHOW US FORMER THINGS? LET THEM BRING FORTH THEIR WITNESSES, THAT THEY MAY BE JUSTIFIED OR LET THEM HEAR, AND SAY, IT IS TRUTH." ISAIAH, XLIII. 9. CHAP. XI.] 159 BRITISH METROLOGY. CHAPTER XI BRITISH METROLOGY; Its High Descent and Pyramidal Bearings. NOT only has it appeared, we trust, from the previous whole, that some standards of British linear measure are instruments of instant dis- covery in the Great Pyramid,—but it may appear that the best modifications of standards for the purpose are those which are allied most closely to our early historic ages. The Very Reverend Bishop Cumberland, D.D., in 1686,* devoting himself for a time to the topic of weights. and measures of many nations, is strong upon both its antiquity, usefulness, and learning. "Learning," says he, "I call this knowledge, because the first constitution of weights and measures, and the reasons and proportions contained in their mutual correspondences, do impart, not only prudent observation, which is learning's foundation, but also some elements of geometry and staticks (which are essential parts of its superstructure) and certain mathe- matical notions which are as old almost as mankind. But," he complains, "such hath been the ignorance and carelessness in these matters, of many intervenient ages, by whose care these things should have been transmitted * See a small duodecimo entitled, "An Essay towards the Recovery of the Jewish (Israelite) Measures and Weights, by help of Ancient Stan- dards, compared with ours of England. Useful also to state many of those of the Greeks and Romans, and the Eastern Nations. By Richard Cumberland, D.D. Ex Iædibus Lambeth, October 12, 1685." I have to thank for the voluntary gift of the above book a namesake of the pyramidally celebrated Professor Greaves, viz., T. Greaves, Esq., Birken- head. 160 [PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. to us their posterity, that many diligent enquirers, quite despairing, have been of late almost inclined to cast the whole subject into its already prepared grave of oblivion and neglect." These views of the worthy Bishop of Peterborough, two centuries ago, contain most salutary truth for our own times also; and if we would fully understand the weights and measures of our own land, we must begin, at least, with Magna Charta date. For those Metrological Institu- tions had existed from still earlier times, even the very earliest times known to our literature, an heirloom among the Anglo-Saxon peoples. So that a late first-rate American writer, as well as statesman (John Quincey Adams), equally claiming with ourselves to be descended from that ancient Anglo-Saxon stock, but without any necessary prejudice in favour of the wisdom of modern British Parliaments, has expressed a very firm conviction that the most perfect condition of those weights and measures, even including all that was done for them by modern savants under the reign of George IV., was, in the earliest known times of Saxon history. It may have been earlier still. At all events, the old, long-employed, ancestor-descended system had already fallen into such republican, many- headed confusion in the times of King John, that his then new Charter, to the joy of all men, said that in future there was only to be one standard of measure throughout the land ;* while, to render that principle a possible one to carry out in practice, wisdom counselled, and ancient Saxon practice reminded, that grand standards both of length and weight should be immediately constructed, and copies thereof dispatched to all parts of the kingdom. But what followed? Those standard measures, if ever made, were lost; no copies were sent to country districts; the Magna Charta "Measures are wanted for two distinct objects, the commercial and the scientific. The wants of natural philosophy have grown up within the last two centuries; while so early as Magna Charta it was one of the concessions to the grievances of the subject that there should be one weight and one measure throughout the land," says the late Lord Brougham's chief educational authority; not knowing, however, that the epoch of Magna Charta, instead of being primeval, is very middle-aged indeed, in the real history of British weights and measures. CHAP. XI.] 161 BRITISH METROLOGY. lawyers trusted in words only;* and then came a certain very natural consequence. Practical weights and measures are not only of interest, but essential importance to all classes of the realm: for, as was well said years ago, all the productions of land and labour, of nature and art, and of every concern and condition of life, are bought, sold, or estimated by them. Hence, weights and measures have been very properly defined as the foundation of justice, the safeguard of pro- perty, and the rule of right; while the laws of honour peculiarly abhor any fraud in this respect. Yet withal, says the same authority, it is to the common people, in every country, to whom the business of weighing and measuring is almost exclusively committed. Whence, in part, by evident necessity it comes, that weights and measures are primarily affairs of the practically labouring classes of the poor, and those who with their own hands do the daily work of the world. So what was the consequence when the restored king and government of A.D. 1215, having got the rule of the country once again into their power, did not send the promised standards to every town and village in the land? Why many towns and even villages began in self-defence to make standard measures for themselves in their often very isolated provincial communities. History of British Weights and Measures from Magna Charta Times to the Georgian Era. Within a certain range, that was tolerable enough; because all those earlier examples pro tem. were more or * A.D. 1215. Magna Charta, sect. 35 :- "There shall be but one uniform standard of weights, measures, and manufactures; that for corn shall be the London quarter.' แ Magna Charta," says Dr. Kelly, in his " Metrology," 1816, "points out the quarter of London as the only standard for measures and weights of that time, but we are left to guess of what measure or weight it was the quarter part." What would he have thought, a most acute man of his day, if he could have been informed, before his death, that the deside- rated vessel of which the British quarter is the fourth part, is the Coffer of the Great Pyramid in the land of Egypt; and that it is still in existence and abundantly measurable, as see back to our pages 107 to 110. M 162 ¿PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. less closely founded on, or were tolerably representative in some way or another of, the original Saxon standards; and were named with short, pithy names derived from the same effective language. But, as civilisation progressed, the tendency arose to substitute legal deeds, in place of material examples. Unfortunately, too, the powers that were, went on framing their acts of parliament without either defining, actually making, or in fact identifying any rigid standard. The taking of practical scientific steps really to do that, seemed to men of over-refined education in both classic literature and high mental philosophy, a base mechanic operation, which their ethereal line of studies placed them far above the level of. So the confusion of weights and measures only grew worse in the kingdom, and the fault was attributed to the wrong parties, i.e., the working men; as when a Parlia- mentary Committee reported in 1758, that of those uneducated beings, but who had hitherto borne all the toil and burden of the work, "only a few of them were able heretofore to make proper measures or weights; standards were carelessly constructed by them and destroyed as defec- tive; and the unskilfulness of the artificers, joined to the ignorance of those who were to size and check the weights and measures, occasioned all sorts of varieties to be dis- persed through the kingdom, which were all deemed legal, and yet disagreed." Other independent-minded persons, however, ventured to counter-report, and perhaps more justly, that another cause of this confusion was "the prodigious number of acts of parliament, whereby the knowledge of weights and measures became every year more and more mysterious." In 1823 it was stated by Dr. Kelly, in his examination before the House of Lords, "that there had been upwards of two hundred laws enacted without success in favour of uniformity, and five hundred various measures in defiance of those laws." Both sets of acts of parliament, too, were in opposition to that law of the practical nature of things, which ordains that everything in connection with weights and measures shall be done in direct reference to material examples thereof. CHAP. XI.] 163 BRITISH METROLOGY. The Georgian and William the Fourth Eras. But, in 1824, a standard yard and a standard pound were at last deposited in the House of Commons; and the Legislature enjoyed the advantage of having a moderately accurate example before them, of the practical thing they were legislating about. This pleasure, however, only lasted about ten years; for in October, 1834, both yard and pound perished in the Great Fire which consumed the two Houses of Parliament. Then was made another lamentable attempt to get on without any standards at all; to collect revenue by the threat of a standard, and yet have no standard to refer to. Lawyers, therefore, had it all their own way in this plea- sant fiction; and in an act of parliament (5 & 6 William IV. c. 63), which passed both assemblies in the following year, the standards were referred to as if still in exis- tence, and quoted as authorities to be appealed to on every occasion, although they had been actually destroyed a twelvemonth before, and no other standards submitted in their stead." Since then, however, a new office has been created for weights and measures, furnished with princely apartments, numerous assistants, a large revenue, and placed under a chief, with the title of "Warden of the Standards;" new standards having been constructed for the nation under the superintendence of Sir G. B. Airy, Astronomer Royal at Greenwich. Hence, too, a gentle current of interest has so decidedly begun to flow towards the subject, that two or three of the oratorical leaders in politics have encourag- ingly intimated, that when that current shall have become decidedly stronger, they may then find it worth their while to utilize its motive power for their own party purposes; and perhaps at the same time consider what can be done for, or with, our British hereditary weights and measures. Outbreak of Modern Agitators and misplaced love for the French Mètre. Too late! too late! for while those politicals were selfishly dallying with their national duties, a mine has been M 2 164 [PART III THE GREAT PYRAMID. sprung beneath their feet. Certain merchants and manu- facturers of the country, with a section of the scientific men, not astronomers, have burst into the arena, and de- clared that they cannot wait for the slow improvements of Government any longer. The creed that they almost worship consists in "buying in the cheapest, selling in the dearest, market," and making money with the utmost speed!* and as they fancy that the further and indefinite. extension of their operations receives a momentary check in some foreign countries by the different metrological systems there and here, so immediately, without allow- ing the mass of the population to have a voice in that which is their affair, which is as ancient and necessary to them, the people, as their very language and all their other national and hereditary institutions; and without con- sidering whether, by breaking down the barriers between France with Frenchified countries and ourselves, they may not be raising up other obstacles between the few rich and the many poor here, as well as between ourselves. as so altered, and our Anglo-Saxon kith and kin in America, they, these new intruders into the metrological scene, are interestedly calling out and loudly demanding that French weights and French measures shall be instantly adopted by force of magistracy from one end of Great Britain to the other. Under pains and penalties, too, of the most compulsory order; and to be enforced at all risks of national resistance by a new and Rhadamanthine description of highly paid officials with a special police at their service to be appointed for that sole purpose. In the midst of such a headlong pursuit of, and un- patriotic "political plunging" after, mere wealth, as this unprecedented throwing overboard of the pre-historic and hereditary, possessions of our nation, for such a purpose, would be, the poor are unfortunately the first to go to the wall. • The Committee were indeed told, from the reports of the Astronomer-Royal at Greenwich, and elsewhere, "that the said forcible introduction of foreign (i.e., the French metrical standards) weights and measures into Great * See Mr. John Taylor's work, "Wealth the Number of the Beast." CHAP. XI.] 165 BRITISH METROLOGY. Britain would be to the excessively great inconvenience of 9,999 persons out of every 10,000 of the population, and the gain to the one person in 10,000 only small; and that any interference of Government for compelling the use of foreign measures in the ordinary retail business of the country would be intolerable; that they could not enforce their penal laws in one instance in a thousand, and in that one it would be insupportably oppressive." Yet all the effect that this wise, and truly charitable information pro- duced on the merchants of peace professions, but money- making and coercion practice, was, in the very words of Mr. Cobden, the teacher of Free-Trade, "to look forward to a comprehensive and exact system of inspection, and the establishment of an efficient (ie., a tyrannous) central department to give force and unity to local action." In fact, for a few Englishmen, smitten with love for Republican and socialist France, to act in Great Britain like a Russian army in undisputed possession of a foreign country; and put down at all costs, amongst the British people, any national feelings of love or veneration for certain historical institutions of their own metrology. Or for things which, however they may have been meddled with in petty ways by modern acts of parliament, and confused by needless multiplications and unwarranted iterations, are still substantially the same as those which the origines of the nation received, no one now knows exactly how, or where, or precisely when; though every- one is aware that we have possessed them for as long as we have been a nation at all; and the mass of our working- people understands the outside, physical world familiarly, intuitively, only in terms of them; viz., of their own ancient hereditary weights and measures. Late near domination of Great Britain by the French Mètre. Thus far, nearly, was written in the first edition of this book, published in 1864; but in 1877, and later, what was the state of matters ? Well, their condition was then surely most passing strange; for, bill after bill has been brought into parlia- 166 [PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. ment, agitators have been at work throughout the land; and men who a few years ago gave the most splendid tes- timony that to force foreign measures on the British people would aggravate them to the extent of civil war,-have now been signing propositions on the other side; and even assisting in putting up at the Palace of Westminster, side by side, copies of the British and French standards of length, as though the Government of France ruled already over half of the British people;-and still the change of weights and measures has not really taken place yet. Other renegades, encouraged too by some of the chief scientific societies in London, have been publishing new text-books in science for, if possible, all the rising gene- ration of the empire; in which books, though the authors still condescend to use the English language, they scorn to be loyal to British authorised weights and measures; but speak of everything in the wide heavens above and broad earth below in the imported French metrical terms; which they seem to have sworn together they will make the people of this country accept, whether they like them or not.* More threatening still were the proceedings of the late Gladstonian Government; for if they did advise Mr. Benjamin Smith to withdraw his parliamentary pro- French-Metric Bill in 1873, it was under the promise that they would bring in a bill themselves in 1874-5. They had already, under the headship of the Duke of Argyll in the India Office, introduced the Anti-British metrical system into India as if they had been Frenchmen, acting for France, and in the most sweeping fashion of thorough- going, red, revolutionists, by arbitrary and unprecedented * In the letters which have appeared in Nature, from H.M.S. Challenger's scientific expedition, carried on at an expense of not less than £20,000 a-year, for four years together, to the British tax-payers, those contemned and much suffering individuals have the distances steamed over by their British ship, by means of British coal, described to them in kilomètres; and even a little shapeless piece of chalk, brought up by the dredge from the ocean-bottom, is defined for size to British Readers by being recorded in minute fractional parts of a mètre. But that is only illustrative of what almost every scientific paper printed by the Royal Society (London) is guilty of. CHAP. XI.] 167 BRITISH METROLOGY. enactments;* and next, apparently they contemplated doing the same thing for the British people themselves. But to have extra power wherewith high-handedly to force French weights and measures down the throats of a free British people, Mr. Gladstone not only appointed himself Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as Prime Minister, but must needs also go to the country for a greater He Parliamentary majority than that he already had. went; and now we all know how he fell. His opponents came into power instead; and are there once again in 1889 A.D. Breadth of the Principles really concerned in the establish- ment of a nation's Weights and Measures. This culminating case almost opens up a possible view of whence came the controlling influence which caused all the former bills before parliament to fail. They were broken without hand; and no one at the time saw why. Certainly they were not defeated by any visibly sufficient * I have before me, in a pamphlet printed in Calcutta in 1871, a copy of "The Indian Weights and Measures Act, xi. of 1870":— Head 1, declares, "This act may be called the Indian Weights and Measures Act, 1870, and extends to the whole of British India." Head 2, declares, as to Standards: "when That the primary standard weight shall be one which weighed in a vacuum, shall be equal to the weight known in France as the Kilogramme des Archives." That the primary standard of length shall be called a mètre, and shall be a distance on a rod of metal, which, "when measured at the temperature of melting ice, is equal to the measure of length known in France as the Mètre des Archives." The unit of measure of capacity shall be a measure containing the equivalents of one French Archives' kilogramme "of water at its maximum density, weighed in a vacuum. >> Head 3, treats of "the use of these new weights and measures. Head 4, of "Wardens" to be appointed to attend them. Head 5, of "Penalties"; and Head 6, Miscellaneous,' "Commencement of Rules," Recovery of "" 66 "" Fines and Fees," &c. Writing now, in 1889, I am told that this alien and unsuitable system is not yet fully in force, that it never can be enforced without, at least, a frightfully overpowering increase of our army and police; and that, in sc far, it has only added another element to the difficulties existing in the way of peacefully ruling India before. 168 [PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. efforts of men. For though two good speeches were delivered against the last bill, what were they to the torrent of now fiery, now persuasive, now flattering declamation on the other side,-claiming, too, to be the side of liberal opinion, of modern science, of political advance, of mercantile wealth, of organized industries, of all civilization, and indeed of everything but-nationality, history, and religion. Those three ought, of course, to be a powerful trio; but the two latter of them were not invoked in parliament at all. Indeed they were apparently not understood by either party as belonging to the subject, though they inevitably must be allowed their due place in its discussion before long; so that whatever political ferment has been made hitherto by the metrological question, it is nothing to what will come. Just now, or up to the present time, the fight has merely been between the would-be introducers of the new French metric system and the defenders of the British national system as it is. Too many of these latter men will have no change, simply because they dislike all change; and have been getting on after a fashion, they think well enough hitherto. But they cannot expect on those prin- ciples to have the victory in future fights always given into their hand especially when they can neither pretend to prove that the existing British metrology is everything that it might be to suit the advanced wants of the present high state of science and civilisation; nor demonstrate that it is still, all that it once historically was, in that primeval time when the system was first given as an heirloom to the Anglo-Saxon race, before its members came to these islands! When writers of the Georgian era are found complain- ing that through all our modern history, our weights and measures had always been growing worse, rather than better,-strange that none of them should have risen to the necessarily resulting idea that at some primeval age, they must have been of admirable and even surpassing excellence. And yet such appears from the Great Pyramid in, but not of, Egypt, to have been the actual fact; even as our religion draws from the Bible scriptures CHAP. XI.] 169 BRITISH METROLOGY. of very early times, and holds no communion with the latest fashions of Paris, or inventions of France. Beginning of the Religious Element in Weights and Measures origination. Before the Flood, according to the Bible, there was no division of mankind into nations; that was a Divine appointment afterwards, together with the creation of their tongues, the appointment of their bounds, and, there are good reasons for believing, the assignment of their weights and measures. And if that was the case, a direct and intentional effort by men to subvert them now entirely, is too like a Tower of Babel disturbance ever to succeed, however many scientists and scientific societies too, put their shoulders to the wheel. But the French metrical system, in its acts and am- bitions, is precisely such an attempt in these days to dethrone the primeval systems of weights and measures among all the nations; and make all mankind speak in future in that new and artificial metrological language, invented only ninety years ago on the banks of the Seine. So that if there is sound reason for believing in the Divine appointment of the ancient systems, and also, that one of the engines and methods of the final and chief Anti- christ in destroying the salvation of mankind, will be to induce them to set up human associations in the latter day in opposition to the revelations of God's will,*-this new antagonistic metrological system ought to have been ushered in under some very evil influence. How, then, was it brought to the light of day? By the wildest, most bloodthirsty, and most atheistic revolution of a whole nation, that the world has ever seen. And, attempt to conceal it as they may, our present meek- looking but most designing promoters for introducing that very French system amongst us, cannot wipe out from the page of history, that, simultaneously with the elevation of the metrical system in Paris, the French nation (as * "The Last Vials," Fifth Series, by a Clergyman. 1850. London : Seeley, Fleet Street. 170 [PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. represented there), did for themselves formally abolish Christianity, declare God to be a non-existence, a mere invention of the priests, and institute a worship of humanity, or of themselves; while they also ceased to reckon time by the Christian era; trod on the Sabbath and its week of seven days, and began a new reckoning of time for human history both in years of their then new French Republic, and in decades of days, so as to conform in everything to their own devised new metrical standards system, helped up however with the old innocent Nature- founded decimal division,--rather than to revelation. Mere human telling, in the first edition of this book, was not enough to remind our British metrical agitators of those fearful things; so they have had them, not sounded again only, but repeated too in fact, within the two years following the Franco-German war, in blood and fire and blackest of smoke throughout the same city of Paris,- when the Commune, on getting for a time the upper hand, immediately re-established the Republican era, and declared war against every traditional observance and re- ligious respect of man. Since then, the still more savage and merciless proceedings of the Spanish Commune, wherever it has had an opportunity of rising in their cities, shows that the heart of man, unregenerated in Christ, is no whit better in the present day than at any epoch throughout all antiquity. While both London, New York, and latest Rome, have seen Socialistic mobs smashing houses and destroying life in their respective streets in the open day; while in Ireland the same thing takes place secretly, with the palliations of not a few Members of the British Parliament. Maddal Now, perhaps,—and without pursuing any further this historic part of the subject of weights and measures, which, though as old as Cain and Seth, if not Abel also, is by no means yet played out on the stage of time,—it may be given to a favoured, predestined few, to begin to understand, on a figure once used by Dr. Chalmers, what extensive armaments of what two dread opposing spiritual powers may be engaging in battle around our little isle, contending there on this subject, too, as well as many others for mighty issues to extend through all eternity. So CHAP. XI.] 171 BRITISH METROLOGY. 1. that not for the force of the sparse oratory emitted in defence of British metrology before parliament, were the bills of the pro-French metrical agitators so often overthrown, but for the sins rather of that high-vaulting system itself; and to prevent a chosen nation, a nation preserved through history thus far by much more than the wisdom of its own native rulers, and for more glorious purposes than have ever yet occurred to them, to prevent that nation un- heedingly robeing itself in the accursed thing, in the very garment of the coming Antichrist; and, for a little base- pottage, or extra shop gain, throwing away a birthright institution which our Abrahamic race was intended to keep, until the accomplishment of the mystery of God touching all humankind. Outcome of all that British Science alone, was recently capable of, in its country's Metrological cause. A very close approach to the dangerous cliff was made only twenty years ago, when the Government's own Standards Commission, not content with the yard in place of the inch being pronounced a new British unit, must also propose to drop the original inch entirely; inventing new names for multiples of 1000 and 2000 of their new unit yard, to take the place of the British mile; and sub- dividing it again as a concrete quantity into a totally unheard-of set of small lengths, such as neither we nor our fathers ever knew, to supersede and obliterate what have hitherto well served all the smaller, and most of the exact, purposes of Anglo-Saxon life and existence. But happily the Commissioners' hands were stayed; and one of their number-the highest approach to the ideal of a philosopher since the days of Newton whom this country has produced, the late Sir John Herschel-was presently gifted to see, that of all the various length-measures now on the statute-book, the inch (which was then in such imminent danger) is by far the most really important; because, not only was it the true and original unit and source of almost all the others, but he found it to be possessed also of cosmopolitan excellencies fitting it for the use of all the nations of the world. This idea, too, 172 [PART III THE GREAT PYRAMID. seemed continually to grow in Sir John Herschel's mind. For, through the inch, and water, he perceived that all the hereditary British weights and measures might be easily made (once again perhaps) most scientifically earth-com- mensurable; and without the popular value of any of the chief units or standards, or even their names being inter- fered with. That grand principle, too, of earth-commensurability, or that there should be a complete and harmonious scale of round, and even, numerical relations connecting the small units employed by man in his petty constructions on the earth, with the grander units laid out by the Creator in the sky, Sir John Herschel stood up splendidly for and argued and wrote for the glorious idea really belonging, and to have belonged of old, to British metrology; but in vain! His colleagues on the Standards Commission. could see no beauty nor desirability in that which he esteemed so highly; unless it was those of them who claimed something of the same earth-commensurable principle, though in a less perfect form, for the foreign invented French mètre: and they wished to abolish the entire and ancient British system. So after doing all that he could to convince, demonstrate, persuade, with the effect only of finding that the majority were determined to sacrifice everything British to France, he took the only final course for a great and honest man to take-he gave up what had been an honour to fifty years of his life, his place at the Standards Commission, his prospects of power or influence in government appointments, and went out from amongst them all, alone. Lowered, perhaps, in the eyes of time-servers; but raised in his own conscience, and nobly nerved to carry on the battle single handed, in the open world outside, against the pro-French metrical mania of the day. That mania, a strange intellectual disease which Sir John Herschel (the equal to whom, not Cambridge herself could show at the greatest of all compe- titive mathematical examinations) deemed not only anti- national, but, in spite of all that is so frequently said for it, not of the highest order of science either. This was a case indeed of a scientist who would willingly suffer in place, power, and worldly social dignity, for CHAP. XI.] 173 BRITISH METROLOGY. opinion; and did so :—a man, therefore, in whom a great nation might trust when any dire emergency should arise; and who, when the last pro-French metrical bill was about to be urged before the House, came to the defence of his country's cause with the following letter to the Editor of the Times:- M SIR,- "As Mr. Ewart's Bill for the compulsory abolition of our whole system of British weights and measures, and the introduction in its place of the French metrical system, comes on for its second reading on the 13th proximo, I cannot help thinking that a brief statement of the comparative de facto claims of our British units and of the French, on abstract scientific grounds may, by its insertion in your pages, tend to disabuse the minds of such, if any, of our legislators who may lie under the impression (I believe a very common one among all classes) that our system is devoid of a natural or rational basis, and as such can advance no d priori claim to maintain its ground. “De facto, then, though not de jure (i.e., by no legal definition existing in the words of an act of parliament, but yet practically verified in our parliamentary standards of length, weight, and capacity as they now exist), our British units refer themselves as well and as naturally to the length of the earth's polar axis as do the French actually existing stan- dards, to that of a quadrant of the meridian passing through Paris, and even in some respects better, while the former basis is in itself a prefer- able one. "To show this I shall assume as our British unit of length the imperial foot; of weight the imperial ounce; and of capacity the imperial half- pint; and shall proceed to state how they stand related to certain proto- types, which I shall call the geometrical ounce, foot, and half-pint; and shall then institute a similar comparison between the French legally authenticated mètre, gramme, and litre in common use with their (equally ideal, because nowhere really existing) prototypes supposed to be derived from the Paris meridian quadrant, distinguishing the former as the practical, the latter as the theoretical, French units. "Conceive the length of the earth's axis as divided into five hundred million equal parts or geometrical inches. "Then we will define:-1. A geometrical foot as twelve such geometrical inches; 2, a geometrical half-pint as the exact hundredth part of a geome- trical cubic foot; and, 3, a geometrical ounce as the weight of one exact thousandth part of a geometrical cubic foot of distilled water, the weighing being performed, as our imperial system prescribes, in air of 62° Fahr., under a barometric pressure of 30 inches. "In like manner the theoretical kilogramme and litre of the French are decimally referred to their theoretical mètre on their own peculiar conven- tions as to the mode of weighing. "This premised-(1) the imperial foot is to the geometrical in the exact proportion of 999 to 1000 (nine hundred and ninety nine to a thousand), a relation numerically so exact that it may be fairly considered as mathe- matical; and (2) and (3), the imperial half piut and ouace are, each of them, to its geometrical prototype as 2600 to 2601. • "Turn we now to the practical deviations from their theoretical ideals in the case of the French units. Here, again (1), the practical mètre is 174 [PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. shorter than its theoretical ideal. The proportion is that of 6400 to 6401. The approximation is, indeed, closer, but the point of real importance is the extreme numerical simplicity of the relation in our case, more easily borne in mind, and more readily calculated on in any proposed case. (2) and (3). Any error in the practical value of the mètre entails a triple amount of aliquot error on the practical kilogramme and litre, so that, in the cases of these units, the proportion between their practical and theoretical values is not that of 6400 to 6401, but of 2133 to 2134. Here, then, the greater degree of approximation is in our favour; and it is to be observed that in our case this triplication of error does not hold good, since, by a happy accident, our standard pound has been fixed quite independently of our standard yard, and our gallon is defined as 10 lbs. of water. "I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, "J. F. W. HERSCHEL. "COLLINGWOOD, April 30, 1869." The Great Pyramid goes still Further. The above admirable letter is very clear so far: but its able author did not go far enough. For while his fountain of earth-commensurability for British measures was based, even by him, upon, not the foot, which he ultimately used, but the inch, being an evenly earth-commensurable measure, and by the particular number of five hundred millions of them,-yet he afterwards drops out of view both the inch, the five times of so many parts, and says nothing about his new cubit standard, which he was at that very time proposing for the British nation, and pre- scribing that it should consist of 5 x 5 of those inches, in place of the nation's present yard of thirty-six inches. Nor does the exceedingly eminent astronomer attempt to show that either the earth-commensurability or the terres- trial fiveness of the British inch was anything more than accidental. At all events, he does not explain how, or when, or through what, or by whom, that unit first came about. And though he alludes to English history as far as any printed acts of parliament may extend, he shows no faith capable of tracing the fortunes of our nation back, and still further back, even up to those dim periods of primeval story where the Bible is the only book worth consulting. Perhaps it was well, though, that Sir John Herschel stopped where he did: for time is required to enable man- kind at large effectually to receive the whole of any very CHAP. XI.] 175 BRITISH METROLOGY. new idea; and had he, the most brilliant representative of modern exact science, gone on further still, and been the propounder of the Great Pyramid Divinely inspired source of the cosmic wisdom so long latent in our ancient measures and announced that they had been monumen- talized by a Palestinian Shepherd King in the early Siriad land before history began, but yet in the most perfect earth and heaven commensurability, and in a manner never known to, or appreciated by, the subsequent profane Egyptians;-the sceptical modern world would hardly have consented to believe, but that the excellencies of such a system were Sir John Herschel's own transcendent in- ventions; and had arisen much more through his brilliant grasp of modern academical science, than by any simple readings in that primeval stone-book of Revelation which still stands on the Jeezeh hill, ever open, though hitherto illegible, to all mankind. But for John Taylor, who never pretended to be a scientific man, to propound the grand idea;-was, and is, quite a different matter. Such plan was, indeed, hardly other, than to let the stones of the Great Pyramid them- selves cry out to a metrologically heedless generation. But now they are beginning to appeal more effectively to the many millions of Anglo-Saxons in the United States of North America. Ma Ancient Anglo-Saxon Metrology in the United States of America declares for its Pyramidal, as well as Biblical, derivation, per Charles Latimer, C.E. The same almost unexplainable activities of a particular class of revolutionary agitators have of late been troubling the people of the United States, as well as those in England; and trying to induce them, in an unguarded moment, to throw away their, as well as our, birthright of ages, in their hereditary and traditional weights and measures; and to adopt the newly-invented measures of France instead. But now, at last, the people there are getting their eyes open to the real nature of the change. which it was proposed they should make; and how do they express themselves upon it? 176 [PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Following a pamphlet recently (August, 1879) published in Cleveland, Ohio, by Mr. Charles Latimer, Chief Engineer of the railway there, he finds that the people of the United States are not for the change; nor the Government thereof; nor are any reasons for the said change adduced, that will bear the light of day. (( If we look abroad," says he, "we can see no evidence of decay in our civilization, or prosperity, or diminution of our business, because we have not adopted these French measures. Certainly our Centennial exhibited a most wonderful spectacle; and did we notice that the French were in advance of us? Is their flag seen in every port on the face of the globe, because of the superiority of their measures? Is not the Anglo-Saxon world (the United States and Great Britain) in advance to-day? What superiority or advantage can the French point to on account of their system?" Then seizing happily the religious thread of the matter, Mr. Latimer exclaims, to the Boston Society of Engineers he was then addressing, and who had very nearly been enveigled a few days before into petitioning Congress to make the adoption of French measures compulsory over the whole United States, "Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "you may rely upon it that these Pilgrim ancestors of yours are not resting easily in their graves on account of your action. They were sticklers for Magna Charta; they loved just weights and measures; and the words of John Quincey Adams, delivered in 1817, are just the words they would give you now. I beg you not to make the mistake of taking the advice of the young men (like those who surrounded Rehoboam), and ignoring the counsel of your fathers. Think for a moment. This French system came out of the Bottomless Pit.' At that time and in the place whence this system sprang, it was hell on earth. * Or thus writes Lieut. Totten, U.S. Artillery, on the U.S. hereditary metrology, "as a topic pregnant with weighty import to the English- speaking peoples of the earth, who already possess the world's gates of Commerce; who raise its food supply, lock up its surplus, and conduct its Trade; who own its mines, coin its money, and control its Industry; who invent its means of progress, cultivate its Intellect, and elevate its Religion; who tone its morals, liberate its inhabitants, and stem its tide of errors. "" CHAP. XI.] 177 BRITISH METROLOGY. The people defied the God who made them; they wor- shipped the Goddess of Reason. In their mad fanaticism they brought forth monsters-unclean things. Can you, the children of the Pilgrim Fathers, consent to worship at such a shrine, and force upon your brethren the untimely production of such an age and place? "Surely not. Say rather, 'Oh! my soul, come not thou into their secret.' "It is true indeed that our weights and measurcs in the present day require some remodelling; but how shall it be done? Not by uprooting all our traditions-cutting our- selves loose from the past. No, we must come back to the perfection of olden sacred history; of that religion which proves that our race is not the result of a spontaneous natural development, but that man came from his Maker a living soul. "But where shall we find such perfection? "I answer," continues Mr. Latimer, "in the Great Pyramid of Jeezeh. For within that grand primeval pillar of stone have been found the standards of weights and measures, so earth and heaven commensurable, and so assimilated to our own ancient and hereditary system, that it does seem as if the Almighty Himself had given them to us as an inheritance, to be kept precisely for the emergency of the present day and hour. And I beg that our American fellow-citizens will most carefully examine into this subject, deeply worthy of their attention. (( Shall we indeed find our units, as well as standards, of weights and measures there? I can confidently answer," says the descendant of the martyred Hugh Latimer, "that they are there. The inch is there; the yard is there; the cubit or arm of 25 inches is there; our year is there ; our Sabbath is there; Christ is there; our past, our present,-yea, perhaps our future. "But let no man judge for you in this matter. The subject is too deeply important, indeed too vital to our nationality. Let every citizen study for him- self." Now this point which the children of the Pilgrim Fathers in America have just arrived at, is exactly that which we are about to essay in the next four chapters. N 178 THE GREAT PYRAMID, [PART III. But it is proper, before we begin upon them, to confess and point out to Great Britain, that the United States are in a remarkable position of advantage in this matter; for they have the figure of the Great Pyramid of Jeezeh stamped on the reverse of their National seal; as thus alluded to by Mr. Latimer: (( When a man or a nation adopts a seal, it is under- stood that the most significant of all emblems, for them, is placed thereon. We look to the seal to give us the clue to the origin or genealogy of the wearer or owner. And if there is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we may,' surely a Divinity directed the hand and inspired the mind that wrought our seal, that of these United States, a Pyramid unfinished, with the all-seeing eye (set in the now invisible, New Testa- mental, topmost corner-stone) above it. Reminding us perchance, of the rock whence we were hewn, and of that Omniscience which has guided us and brought us to our present glory and honour as a nation; reminding us, too, that we must look to that wonderful monument of stone for our origin, our history; indeed our weights and measures. (( What other nation has such a seal? Will the Great Pyramid speak to those whose measures are not there? The Pyramid speaks in inches. Will this be intelligible to those who have thrown away their ancient traditional birth-right, destroyed their old measures, and make it a penal offence now, for their sons to use any other than the modern French metrical system ?" So spoke the brilliant spirit, the Christian love, the Bible devotion, the intense patriotism, of Charles Latimer ten years ago. For nine following years he devoted himself heart and soul to the cause, to his International Institute for preserving and perfecting hereditary weights and measures according to the teaching of the Great Pyramid, and to the "International Stan- dard," the journal of that Society. And then, on the evening of March 25, in the year 1888, he was called away in the midst of evening prayer before his house- hold, and passed into the Master's service above with- out an instant of apparent pain, without a moment's CHAP. XI.] BRITISH METROLOGY. 179 delay between earth and heaven; and has left a truly irreparable loss, but an inextinguishable example behind him.* * See our Appendix No. XI., from Jacob M. Clark, Esq., C.E., the new President of the Cleveland, Ohio, American Pyramid Society. See also in itself the most weighty, original, and learned book yet pub- lished on the world's Metrology, under the title of,- "AN IMPORTANT QUESTION IN METROLOGY:" A Challenge to the "French Metric System"; and An Earnest Word with the English-speaking Peoples, on their Ancient Weights and Measures. By CHARLES A. L. TOTTEN, M.A., Lieutenant Fourth United States Artillery, Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the Cathedral School of St. Paul, N.Y., &c., &c. Published by John Wiley and Sons, 15, Astor Place, New York. N 2 180 [PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. CHAPTER XII. PYRAMID CAPACITY MEASURE; And first, the Coffer's Great Pyramid authenticity. TH HE grand standard of capacity in the Great Pyramid, as already stated, is given by the internal cubical measure, tested by theory, of the granite COFFER near the further, or western, end of the King's Chamber; and that, the final and crowning apartment of the whole of the interior of our earth's earliest and most gigantic monu- ment of stone. But the said coffer is loose, isolated, standing on a flat floor without any guide-marks to show how it should be placed, and without the smallest hindrance (save its prodigious weight) to prevent it, in its present lidless con- dition, being pushed about anywhere, even through the doorway, down the long passages, and out of the Pyramid altogether, except for the contraction of one passage-way, at one particular point, viz., the first ascending passage at its lower commencement. Even that fact too was recently disputed; for some one had said, in spite of my measures in "Life and Work" to the contrary, that there was a quarter of an inch to spare. But Dr. Grant, of Cairo, accompanied by Mr. Waller, a medical man of the same place, specially looked into that matter in December, 1873; and settled it there and then by direct and immediately successive measures, with the same scale on both the passage breadth at the indicated place, and the breadth of the coffer vessel; the former measuring 383, and the latter 387 inches. That being the case, the coffer could not have been. introduced by the regular passage-way leading to the CHAP. XII.] PYRAMID CAPACITY MEASURE. 181 King's Chamber, but must have been deposited on the floor before the Chamber was roofed in, securing thereby its contemporary character. There are, however, still more cogent reasons to guide us in this decision, in a series of innate features of scientific measurement, never appreciated by Egyptians themselves, nor Greeks, nor Romans, nor Arabs, yet evidently, from the exactness with which these features were executed at their original date, and their many confirmations and re-confirmations of each other, they were intended by the ancient architect. Intended moreover for a further very necessary purpose, for though the coffer as a capacity mea- sure is larger than anything now on the British Statute- book, being indeed four times the size of the quarter which is at the head there, yet one, single coffer measure is a very small thing to set before the whole world, and ask all nations to accept it as a standard in pre- ference to any other box or cylinder, or other shaped or differently sized measure which they might have already made, or be thinking of making, for themselves. But all this difficulty seems to have been perfectly foreseen by the inspired architect, and therefore it was that he identified the coffer by certain rather abstruse, yet positively identifiable, scientific features with the King's Chamber in which it is placed. And that chamber, with the enormous mass of the Great Pyramid itself. That building, too, with the sector-shaped land of Lower Egypt. And Lower Egypt with the centre of the inhabited land surface of the whole world. So that, sinall though the coffer may be in itself, there cannot be another vessel of such central and cosmically indicated importance as this is to the whole of mankind, when explained. M But who is to explain it ? Evidently it requires some one who has been favoured with wisdom. Others have seen and despised it, from Caliph Al Mamoun down to the uproarious visitors at the opening of the Suez Canal; but we have been already told in Holy Scripture that there are things which, though absolutely inscrutable to the world at large, yet neverthe- less the wise shall understand them. And if the chief explanations which I am now about to quote, have becu 182 [PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. furnished by Mr. James Simpson, known only as a young bank clerk in Edinburgh, and of eminently Evangelical Christianity, is there not proof that he has been favoured with wisdom, and has been privileged to throw upon this ancient subject a light it never enjoyed before, within the history of all civilized times ? But let us come to the point and the proofs. The Pyramid Connections of the Coffer, by Size. For the full measures of the coffer, the reader must be still referred to Chapter VIII. and its references. But we may consult his convenience by repeating the chief mean results of them here,-as thus: OUTSIDE MEASURES OF THE COFFER IN PYRAMID INCHES. Length, from 89 92 to 89 62, corrected for concavity of sides. Breadth, from 38 68 to 38 61 Height, from 41.23 to 41.13 "" "" INSIDE MEASURES OF THE COFFER IN PYRAMID INCHES. Length, 77-85, supposed to be true within half a tenth of an inch. Breadth, 26.70, Depth, 34.31, Thickness of bottom Thickness of sides "" ... ... "" ... Exterior cubic size Interior cubic contents Also that, Sides of coffer, cubic size Bottom of coffer cubic size ... ... 12 "" Now all these numbers are necessary to be kept in mind, for they have all a part to play in the proofs to come; and from the manner in which they are given, it will be seen that I have so far neglected the ledge cut out. I have done so; have in fact virtually filled it up; as indeed the mere overlooking it in the present category, is quite enough to bring about; and as evidently should be done by all who desire to obtain what must have been the original form; and which, in all its apparent geometric simplicity, is yet fraught with manifold design. We have already shown, and Professor H. L. Smith, of New York, has independently confirmed, with regard to the coffer, taken in and by itself, that-- ·· ... "" ... "" "" "" Pyramid cubic inches. 142,316) nearly. 71,317 47,508 23,758 nearly. And these relations, so like the duplication of the cube ... "" "" = 6.91 Pyramid inches. 5.98 3 2 CHAP. XII.] PYRAMID CAPACITY MEASURE. 183 problem among the Greeks,* are found in a vessel of strict geometrical figure, without carvings, and without any other adornment than planed, and almost true, and smooth surfaces, as see the copies of Dr. Grant's and Mr. Waller's cast of them on Plate XVIII.; where the side of the coffer is the facile princeps, in point of smoothness, of all the various examples of worked granite surfaces. But now for the connections with the red granite chamber, which the coffer is placed in; and with the Pyramid building itself. (1.) The chief line of the whole King's Chamber is geometrically its cubic diagonal, and that has been certainly now ascertained by modern measure, assisted by computation, to be equal to 515-165 Pyramid inches. This is Mr. Simpson's base-line from which he reaches up to the Great Pyramid on one side, and down to the coffer on the other; thus: (2.) 515-165 × 10=5151 65 side of a square of equal area with the Great Pyramid's vertical, right section. (3.) 515-165=twice the greatest horizontal circumference of the coffer; nearly- 515.165 (4.) 10 =51·5165=(A.) the mean length of all the coffer's "arris," or edge lines. =(B.) Diameter of a circle whose area is represented in the coffer's interior horizontal area; i.e., its inside floor. =(C.) Side of a square whose area = mean area of the four external vertical sides of coffer. =(D.) The diameter of a sphere, whose contents (71,588) come very near those of the hollow part of the coffer, and do, in a sense, exist there. =(E.) The radius of a circle in which the natural tangent of a Draconis (the Pyramid's Polar star at the date of erection) was at its higher culmination, viz., 33° 41′ 20″ 34 344 Pyramid inches coffer's depth. * The Rev. Henry Morton, of St. Stephen's Rectory, South Shields, brings out extremely well in his paper in "Life from the Dead" for March, 1877, that the duplication of the cube, from including an incommensur- able, was just as endless a disputation as squaring the circle, among primitive men; and it is so among modern men also, when imperfect in their mathematical education. Hence, when the people of Athens, deci- mated by a dreadful pestilence, applied to the Oracle of Delphi to stop it- and of course the oracle only required time enough for the pestilence to stop itself and then claim the credit for the Delphian false god-he, the oracle, set the people upon the problem of how, exactly to duplicate the cube of the pedestal of that god's statue. Wherefore, in that day, 1700 years after the Great Pyramid's foundation, and its double practical accomplishment of a variety of the duplication problem in the coffer-the Delphian Oracle was sage enough to know the difficulty of the case, and the people of Athens were not clever enough to solve it in any finite time. 184 [PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. (5.) At the same time the external correlative of inside depth, namely, the height, is given simply by the tenth part the length of the King's Chamber containing it, viz., 41.213. — (6.) While the breadth of the coffer's base is given thus, based on the num- ber of days in the solar year :-In a circle with circumference 365 242 Pyramid inches, the natural tangent of 33° 41′ 20″, or the Pyramid Polar star's upper culmination 38753 Pyramid inches, = breadth of coffer's base; and again ante-chamber's length 116 260 divided by 3. (7.) The depth and height are moreover thus related :- Depth squared: height squared :: area of side: area of side + end. If 103-033 Pyramid inches was found an important touchstone of commensurability in the King's Chamber, bringing out Mr. Simp- son's " sums of the squares there," we may expect to find it in the coffer also; where accordingly- (8.) 103·033²= area of four exterual sides of the coffer, nearly. 103.033 (9.) 34 344 depth of coffer. = S Ma 3 (10)103-0332-height of the coffer squared. 2π This last theorem brings into view the invaluable. quantity T, which the Great Pyramid commemorates by the shape of its whole external figure; and Mr. St. John Vincent Day had announced long since, that, profiting by small inequalities between the sides of the coffer, as shown to exist by my measures of them, it could be proved that the height of the coffer is to the length of two adjacent sides (viz., a side and an end) as 1 to π. And now to that good beginning, Mr. Simpson adds,- Katalog (11.) Coffer's internal floor has a boundary whose length = the circum- ference of a circle of equal area to coffer's outer floor or base ; a curious result this of the long shape of the coffer, compared with the cube or cylinder, which it might have been for capacity measure alone, and of which more presently. (12.) Coffer's depth multiplied by 2 π area of East and West (that is the two long) sides of the coffer. side + end (13.) Coffer's height squared = area of T. (14.) A circle with diameter 38 753 Pyramid inches (the breadth of the coffer's base); or again, A square with side 34 344 Pyramid inches (the depth of the coffer), has an area the area of the external long side divided by π. (15.) Finally, if two vertical, right, sections be made through the middle of the coffer, then such are the proportions of lengths, breadths and thicknesses, that (A.) Area of the sections of the walls of coffer, is to area of whole section included, as 1 to π. And (B.) Area of sectional walls height of coffer squared. Then follow some most interesting correspondences, with CHAP. XII.] PYRAMID CAPACITY MEASURE. 185 distinctions, between these three apparently most diverse things, the pointed Great Pyramid, the enclosed King's Chamber, and the lidless granite coffer; thus- (16.) In each of these three structures, one rule governs their shape, viz. : two principal dimensions added together are 7 times the third. Illustrated thus- K In Great Pyramid, Length + breadth = height. In King's Chamber, Length + height=π breadth In Coffer, Length + breadth=π height. Wherefore I'yramid and coffer have their radii vertical, and King's Chamber horizontal. Professor Hamilton L. Smith, of New York, has also been privileged to discover many remarkable commensurabili- ties between the coffer and other signal portions both of the Great Pyramid, and some natural data, such as the number of days in the year; these latter commensurabili- ties evidently requiring that the measures of the coffer be expressed in Pyramid inches, and in no other units of a different length from them. Position of the Coffer in the King's Chamber. But now, still further, for the position of this remark- able vessel, the coffer, in the equally remarkable room, the King's Chamber. To a certain extent I have almost foreclosed against myself the possibility of having anything of importance to say there-having described the coffer as loose on a flat, smooth, unmarked floor, and having also spoken of one end being tilted up, by a nodule of hard jasper from the desert outside, pushed in by Arabs in modern times, merely to make the poor vessel vibrate and resound more loudly when struck with a big stone. It is the south end which is so tilted, and in committing that abomination, the ignorant children of the desert of to-day seem to have shoved the coffer ten inches towards the north of where it had been intended to stand; for on subtracting that quantity from my measured distance (see "Life and Work," Vol. II., p. 105) from the south wall, and adding it to what was measured from the north wall, each distance comes out 58 2 Pyramid inches: or, within the limits of errors of observations, it the height of the Great Pyramid above the mean socket floor, divided by 100 = 186 [PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Encouraged by this indication, Mr. Simpson considered the distance of the west side of the coffer, from the west side of the chamber. The slued position of the coffer (see Plate XVII.), evidently indicates that the men who recently pushed it northward while tilting it, moved it, chiefly at the elevated south end, a little eastward too. My present measured distance, therefore, from the west, 55.0 inches, is rather too great. What distance then ought it to have occupied in such a monument as this, where everything evidently goes by number and measure? What else, replied Mr. James Simpson, than the coffer's touchstone length, 51·516 Pyramid inches? Allowed pro tem.; but what length does that leave between the eastern side of the coffer, and the eastern end of the chamber? Nay, said he, take it not from the far-off eastern wall of this long chamber, but from a meridian plane cutting the long chamber into two equal halves, and then you will find the quantity 116 inches; or approximately the length of the ante-chamber; a quantity to be still further investi- gated by-and-by. Meanwhile if we have, theoretically, divided the King's Chamber, transversely to its length into two equal halves; is anything else gained by that? This most important illustration of the very ground- work of the claim of the coffer to be a vessel of capacity having a whole earth-size reference. At p. 125 we showed its formation upon the cube of a line of the length of 50 inches, or two of the remarkable cubits of the Great Pyramid, each of which cubits is memorable through all science and all history as the ten-millionth part of the earth's semi-axis of rotation, for the period of intellectual man residing on this planet world. Now that "ten millions" is a large number, but very round, exact, and characteristic; and if we take the pre- cise breadth and half length of the room as determined before (p. 134), 206·066 Pyramid inches, and for height the larger 2nd height also given before, say 235 5, we obtain almost exactly 10 million cubic inches, as the contents of each half of the room; or indicating that something is accom- plished there connected with capacity measure, and depend- ing primarily on a length of two such cubits, as these CHAP. XII.] PYRAMID CAPACITY MEASURE. 187 earth-axis commensuric ones of the Great Pyramid are: commensuric, too, each of them, by ten millions. Shape of the Coffer. The earth-size relations then of the coffer, as deduced for itself alone, are justified by the whole King's Chamber; and the actual size, we showed before (p. 118), is Pyramid- ally recognised by the lower course capacity of the chamber being 50 times the contents of the coffer, and the coffer standing on the 50th course of the masonry of the whole of the Great Pyramid from the mean socket floor upwards. But the shape; yes, the shape of the coffer as a capacity measure- what is to justify that? We have already given a variety of reasons of a some- what mathematical order at pp. 109, 182, but have no objec- tion now to add thereto this general verbal apology :—that the shape of the coffer is to enable it, with its elemental- founded size, to typify and be most suitable to the size, shape, forces, and purposes of man; not of man trying to scale the heavens by his own might, but of man living in obedience to, and dying in harmony with, the commands of God his Creator. - John Taylor' ad suggested, but not very strongly, that the shape of the coffer was derived from the hot bath, the Calidarium, long known in the East; and such a shape, he showed, had been found more convenient for a corn- holder, or large corn-measure, than a cube of the same contents. But in presence of the 4,000 years and more, which the Great Pyramid now represents to man, -the most solemn case of lying down is that of the tomb; and the full length, horizontal extension is characteristic of what was ever taught in the Hebrew or Christian religion; being radically opposed to the generally bent-up, and shortened attitude of miserable medieval idolaters. Practical application of the Coffer in Capacity Measure. Having already said so much in point of principle and theory for the coffer, we may now approach the final object 188 [PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. of this chapter, viz., the practical uses in capacity-measure of the granite coffer of the King's Chamber; a vessel measuring, as its architect originally intended that it should, 71,250 cubic Pyramid inches. tion The whole quantity subdivides itself easily, after the manner of the Pyramid arithmetic and Pyramid construc- as follows:-the two most important steps being, first, the division into 4, as typifying the four sides of the Pyramid's base; and second, the division into 2,500, or 50 x 50 parts; fifty being the special number of the room, and the number also of the masonry courses of the whole structure on which that chamber, or rather the two adjoined chambers of ten million cubic inches each, of which it is composed, rest in their places. PYRAMID CAPACITY MEASURE. Division, or numbor, of cach denomination contained in 'he whole coffor. 1 0 4 4 10 2.5 25 2.5 Inter- mediate divisions. 250 10' 2,500 10. 25,000 10. 250,000 10. 10. 25,000,000 Capacity of cach denomi- nation in Pyramid cubic inches. 71,250. 17,615. 7,125. 2,850. 285. 28.5 2.85 0.285 0.00285 Equivalent Weight in Pyramid pounds of Wator. 2,500. 625. 250' 100. 10. 1. 0.1 0.01 0.0001 Name now propose to be given to oach successive portion. Coffer. Quarter. Sack. Bushel. Gallon. Pint. Wine glass or fluid oz. Tea-spoon or fluid dr. Drop. We begin, therefore, in the above tabular digest, with the large quantity of the coffer; and end in descending with a microscopic unit which, in an approximate form as a drop (ie., the cubical space occupied by a drop of water falling freely in air at a given Pyramid temperature and pressure), is in everyone's hands, and is definable accurately upon the coffer by the stated proportion. In contrasting this arrangement with the British im- perial system, we may see at once that that modern system is merely a measure for large and rude quantities, know- pad CHAP. XII.] PYRAMID CAPACITY MEASURE. 189 ing of nothing smaller than the pint (the gill being merely a later tolerated addition to suit special wants), and rendering it therefore necessary for the apothecaries and druggists to manufacture a sort of fluid and capacity measure for themselves; which they do by starting from the pint and ending in the drop; or a "minim." This apothecaries' fluid measure was established only in 1836; and we may assume, with Lord Brougham's Penny Cyclopædia, that its fluid ounce, when it is an ounce, is an ounce avoirdupois; although it is stated elsewhere that medical men are never to use anything but troy weight. This incongruity renders the break between imperial, i.e., the present British, capacity, and apothecaries' capacity, measures peculiarly trying; followed as it is by a break of connection between apothecaries' capacity, and apothe- caries' weight, measures also. In the Pyramid arrangement, however, there is no halting half-way; but, when it is a question of capacity, the scheme goes right through from the biggest bulks ever dealt with in commerce, and through all the measures required by the people further in dealing with coal, corn, wool, potatoes, beer, wine, peas, meal, oil, medicines, photo- graphicals, and chemicals, down to the smallest quantity ever judged of by capacity measures of specified name. For when once we have arrived by several decimal stages at "drops," no one would ever think of subdividing them in any other manner, even if he could, than by the tens of pure arithmetic again and again. But the chief unit of the imperial capacity system is a pint; and it is, morcover, the very important centre of connection between that system for large ordinary quan- tities, and the apothecaries' system for scientific and medical small quantities. The pint occupies, therefore, the position of all others on the scale which should be round and complete, testable also at a moment's notice by an equally round, well-known, and frequently employed standard of weight. So it was too in the days of the wisdom, wherever that was derived from, of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, but under the reign of George IV. the pint, from having been measured by one pound's weight of water, was 190 THE GREAT PYRAMID. [PART III. expanded into the odd quantity of 1 and pounds. And the change was attempted to be electro-plated with brilliant proverbial mail, by giving out this jingling rhyme, to be learned by all good subjects,- "A pint of pure water Weighs a pound and a quarter." But we may well venture to doubt whether every peasant does not rather still ruminate in his family circle and about the old hearthstone over the far more ancient and pithier rhyme,- "A pint's a pound, 1 All the world round." An expression, too, in which there may be vastly more than immediately meets the eye; seeing that the Pyramid system appears to restore that principle. And, what with the United States of North America (true, except in the persons of a few ultra professors, to their ancient hereditary covenant), and all the existing British colonies, these form, as prophecied of old, the measuring line of Israel round the whole world. At all events, to those who now enter the Great Pyramid, and look with understanding eyes, one of the first things set before them in that microcosm of the King's Chamber, viz., the Ante-Chamber thereto, is the Boss on the granite leaf. Which boss, in spite of its acknowledged roughness and over and above having served in lineal measure to perpetuate the inch, is now found in its cubic capacity to represent approximately the Pyramid pint; the Pyramid pint too, visibly standing vertically over the lower stone of the leaf, proved already (see p. 148) to indicate the size of the "Quarter" measure of the system. Almost every one of the Pyramid's capacity measures, however, over and above its pint, with its weight-equal the pound, admits of being tested by a round number of "water- pounds"; and that number is always such a one as we shall presently see equally exists in the Pyramid system of weight measure. We have, therefore, only to conclude this division of the subject by submitting a table of comparison of each con- cluded Pyramid capacity vessel, with each similarly named current capacity vessel in Great Britain (and almost, if not CHAP. XII.] PYRAMID CAPACITY MEASURE. 191 exactly the same in America) through means of the known medium of British cubic inches. Whence it will be seen that, excepting the "coffer," there is no need to invent any new names; for, under the existing ones, as of bushels, gallons, &c., &c., the absolute capacities have often varied much more than here indicated, and without a tithe of the reason for it. PYRAMID, AS COMPARED WITH BRITISH CAPACITY MEASURES. Compared through the temporary medium of British cubic inches. Coffer, Pyramid 71,463-750 Four Quarters, Brit. 70,982.144 Quarter Sack Bushel Gallon Pint "9 "" "" << "" "1 ... Ounce or Wine-glass Dram or Tea-spoon Drop, Pyramid ... ··· ... ... Country or City. Ancona Malta Great Pyramid Rome ... 11 (( ... ... 17,865 938 7,146.375 2,858.550 285.855 28.585 ... 2.858. •286 ⚫003 ... INTERNATIONAL APPENDIX TO GREAT PYRAMID CAPACITY MEASURE. ... Quarter Sack Bushel Gallon If analogues of the Great Pyramid measures are thus found in the purest metrology of the Anglo-Saxons presently known, some traces of them can hardly but be discoverable also in the hereditary metrologies of other countries, through which the Anglo-Saxons marched before they occupied these British Isles 1,200 years ago. Without, then, attaching any particular importance to the results, I append here some of the most striking approaches to coincidence, chiefly gathered from Dr. Kelly's Universal Cambist," published in 1821. Quarter" Capacity Corn Measures. Name of Measure. A Rubbio... Salma Quarter of Coffer... Rubbio... "" Pint (Old W. Pint) Imperial Ounce, fluid, Apoth. Dram, fluid, Apoth. Drop, Apoth. "" ... >> ... ", w | || 17,745 532 6,654-574 2,218.196 277.279 28.875 34.659 1.733 0.217 0.004 17,459. 17,678. 17,866. 17,970 Contents in British cubic inches, 192 [PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Country or City. Amsterdam Bolsano Deventer Genoa Hanau Great Pyramid Reval Turin Zwoll ••• ·· ... ... ... •• ••• ... ... ... Country or City. Calabria Greek (ancient) Maranham Mecklenburg Nancy Great Pyramid St. Maloes Sardinia ... ... ••• "Sack" Capacity Corn Measures. ... ... ... ... ... ··· .. .. ... Name of Measure. ... Mudde... Scheffel Mudde... Mina Malter. Sack Tonne Sacco Mudde... ... ... Tomolo... Medimnus Alquiero Scheffel Carte "Bushel" Boisseau Starello ... ... ... ... "Bushel" Capacity Corn Measures. : ... ••• ... Name of Measure. ... ... A ••• ... .. ... ... ... .. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Contents in British cubic inches. 6,788. 6,657. 7,049. 7,367, 6,868. 7,146. 7,219. 7,015. 6,851. Contents in British cubic inches. 3,119. 2,712 2,772 2,591. 2,925' 2,858. 2,697. 2,988. CHAP. XIII.] PYRAMID WEIGHT MEASURE. 193 CHAPTER XIII. PYRAMID WEIGHT MEASURE, Based on Earth's Mean Density. TH HE weight measure of the Great Pyramid we have also to obtain from its grand Red-Granite Coffer, situated as that remarkable vessel is in the calm air, the retirement, and most equal tempera- ture, riotous proceedings of modern visitors alone excepted, of its internal, and well protected King's Chamber. But as before intimated, any question of weight, treated in the highest terrestrial sense and for all mankind, requires the introduction of an additional and more difficult idea than the mere cubic space of capacity measure; and this idea is, the mean density of the whole earth. Were masses of such matter directly procurable, the best representation of the Pyramid weight standard might have been, a rectangular block of that substance, 5·7 times smaller than the coffer's internal capacity, set up beside it in that chamber. But as we are not able, in spite of all the wonderful resources of modern science, to delve anything like deep enough to obtain a specimen of this grand unit material which forms the foundation of our globe (if indeed it really exists as a unity, and does not rather arise from the arithmetical average density of a vast variety of elements, some of them very much heavier, and others lighter than the 5'7), we must take () 194 [PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. the coffer's contents in water as a stepping-stone; but only as such a mere and temporary intermediary, to reach our desired result. Thus the coffer's contents of pure water are 71,250 cubical Pyramid inches, which at the temperature of 68° Fahr., and barometric pressure of 30-000 Pyramid inches, would weigh 18,030,100 of our avoirdupois grains (according to the estimate of the British Govern- ment that one cubical British inch of distilled water at temperature 62° Fahr. and barometer 30.000 inches, weighs 252-458 grains; the necessary reduction being performed for the different size of the inch and the altered temperature). But if the earth's mean density material be 5.7 times heavier than water, a mass of that said heavy material, but 57 times smaller than 71,250 cubical inches, viz., measuring 12,500 cubical inches only, will also weigh, at the same air tempera- ture and pressure, the same 18,030,100 British avoirdupois grains. That beginning made, we have next to inquire, what are, may, or should be, the subdivisions of the whole block of 12,500 cubical Pyramid inches of the Earth's Mean Density on the Pyramid weight system of metrology? Here we can follow no better plan than that adopted in the capacity branch of metrology; and then we are rewarded by finding, when we come to the most characteristic division of all, viz., that of 50 50, which should give us a popular weight unit to compare with the pint in capacity-we find, I say, that it does give us something which is excessively close, in absolute weight, to the old Saxon pound; and with this further advantage, of world wide application for the Pyramid system, viz., that each such Pyramid pound* is equal to the weight of five cubical Pyramid inches of the carth's mean density. × That, indeed, is not a substance to be practically dealt with. But on dividing its 5 cubic inches by 2, Nature gives us the Pyramidal pound's weight in 2-5 cubic inches of Lead; a metal which popularly means weight. See p. 65, &c., of Lieut. Totten's, U.S.A., "Important Question in Metrology." *12,500 ÷ (50 × 50) = 5. CHAP. XIII] PYRAMID WEIGHT MEASURE. 195 Hence our first Pyramid weight table runs thus: PYRAMID WEIGHT MEASURE. Division or number of each part contained in the weight standard. 1 4 10 25 250 Inter- mediate Divi- sions. 25,000,000 : ... 4 · 2.5 2.5 10. 2,500 10. 25,000 10. 250,000 10 10. Weight of the part so divided in Pyramid lbs. 2 500' 625' 250. 100. 10. 1. 0.1 0.01 0.0001 Capacity of the parts in Pyramid cubical inchos of earth's mean density. 12 500. 3 125. 1 250· 500· 50. 5. 05 0.05 0.0005 Capacity of the parts in Pyramid cubical inches of distilled water (T. 50 B. 30- of Pyramid). 71 250 17 815· 7 125' 2 850· 285 28.5 Name now proposed to be given to each kind of part. fon. Quarter. Wey. Cwt. Stone. Pound. Ounce. 285 0.285 Dram. 0.00285 Grain. The old British Grain Weights nearer to those of Great Pyramid, than the newer ones. Having already stated that the Pyramid grand weight standard weighs in British avoirdupois measure, 18,030,100 of those grains; we are met, as soon as we begin to compare Pyramid and British weights together in point of fact, with an accusation,-that the Pyramid grains must be very small, if there are 25,000,000 of them, to 18,000,000 nearly of the British. But herein comes to light one of those needless pieces of meddling legislation by our too modern, or Georgian era, political rulers, which so provoked John Quincey Adams and other American writers on Saxon metrology; for whereas the old law of the land was, that the Troy pound should be divided into 7,680 grains (and which were very nearly the weight of full and fair grains of well- grown wheat), a later law said that it should be divided into only 5,760 parts or grains so called, but of no known variety of plant employed for breadstuff. Wherefore Cocker, Wingate, and other arithmeticians of the day, used to enter in their useful compendia for schoolboys during the transition period, that 32 real grains, viz., the 0 2 196 [PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. old ones, or 24 artificial grains, i.e., the new ones, made the pennyweight troy; and when that ingenious story was pretty well indoctrinated into all obedient scholars, the notice of the old grains was dropped out altogether, and the new ones remained masters of the situation, with the word "artificial" removed, and as though there had never been any other. Referred then now, over the heads of these new, to the genuine old, grains of Saxon metrology (so far as we can trace them back by the usual literary and historical steps), the number of 25,000,000 of the Pyramid grains would have been measured by 24,040,100 of the smaller and more real Saxon grains of that earlier, though not Pyramid epoch, day; but a sufficiently close approach, or to the of a grain, to satisfy the ordinary purposes of life. 25 Conflict of three different systems of Weight-measure in Great Britain. But the British legal weight measure of modern times has, over and above this item, always been, even within itself and at home, in a dire antagonism between two rival and continually jostling systems; viz., troy and avoirdupois, not to say anything of apothecaries' weight, which is little but the troy, under a different mode of subdivision. General public favour seems at last to have settled upon avoirdupois, as most worthy, in spite of its long and unwieldy French name, to be the national weight in future for things in general, and especially things on a large scale. But as it does not go lower than drachms (of many whole grains, and some fractions, each), why then, even though troy weight should be extinguished to- morrow, apothecaries' weight will have still to be kept up for dealing with smaller quantities than such drachms. The Pyramid weights, therefore, which are on one system only, and go through the whole scale from tons to grains without any break, seem to offer already, at this point, an honourable mode of escape to the British nation out of the confusion it has suffered for ages. No new names are required, many close approaches to the grander standards and units of our country will be remarked, and CHAP. XIII.] PYRAMID WEIGHT MEASURE. 197 the proportions of matter under each denomination, as used in the Pyramid, and in British, nomenclature, are approxi- mately as follows:- PYRAMID, AS COMPARED WITH British, Weight Measures. Compared through the temporary medium of the present legal English "artificial," and over-large, grains. 1 ton Pyramid 18,030,100. 1 wey Pyramid 1 cwt. Pyramid 1 stone Pyramid 1 pound Pyramid= 1 ounce Pyramid 1 drachm Pyramid= 1 grain Pyramid = = 1,803,010' 721,200 72,120. 7,212. 721.20 72.12 0.7212 1 ton avoird. 1 ton shipping 1 wey English 1 cwt. avoird. 1 stone meat 1 stone wool 1 pound avoird. 1 pound, an ancient weight preserved at the Exchequer 1 pound old English and Scotch 1 oz. avoird. 1 oz. troy or apoth. 1 drachm avoird. 1 drachm apoth. = 15,680,000. = 18,816,000. = = = 1 grain "real," or old Saxon 1 grain modern Eng- lish 1,274,000. 784,000. 56,000. 98,000. 7,000. 7,100. 7,600. 437.5 480.0 27.34375 60.00000 0.75000 1·00000 Specific Gravity, and its Interference with Bulk and Weight. In no part of metrology more than in weight, is there found so much of the wheel within wheel of natural difficulty, tending, unless well watched and studied, to introduce perverse variations whenever uniformity is attempted; and there are still existing some supporters of the old arguments for keeping up both the troy and avoir- dupois weight systems amongst us. For the same reasons, too, that those gentlemen believe the complication was first introduced. And what reasons were they? When society was in a very primitive, or much more probably, a medieval degraded condition, and little but grain was sold, a test for the amount of grain in any par- ticular vessel was, the weight of water it would hold. But 198 [PART III. THE GREAT PYRAMID. water and grain are of different specific gravities; there- fore, if equal bulks were taken, the purchaser got a very different real and usable quantity of what he valued most, than if equal weights had been observed; and as some parties were more particular about bulks than weights, and vice versa, two sets of weights were prepared, with such an amount of difference between them, that a pound of grain, measured by the one sort of pound, occupied exactly the same cubical space as a pound of water measured by the other variety of pound. But in the present day, when an infinity of kinds and species of matters besides bare grain are bought and sold, and almost every one of the thousand and more substances thus dealt in, has a different specific gravity, we cannot hope to have as many different systems of weight as there are kinds of such substances; though by so doing, and at the same time maintaining only one system of capa- city measure, there might be kept up on many occasions a specious appearance of identity between weight and bulk. Hence, for the modern man, the only practical resource seems to be, to have one capacity, and one weight measure, each pure and simple; but to produce the identity required of old for different substances, by calculation. Assisting that calculation necessarily by some convenient table of specific gravities, wherein the point of coincidence between the two descriptions of measure, or the point where there is no calculation at all from bulks to find weights, shall be in favour of the best average example of all the substances which have in their turn to be either weighed or measured by man. In the French metric system this point of coincidence is occupied by water; and it is intended that the cubic amount of water being measured, that statement shall in itself, with the mere alteration of names, express its weight. Hence, at a recent metrological discussion, at the Philo- sophical Society of Glasgow, a pro-French metrical speaker lauded this quality of his favourite anti-British-national system; and enlarged upon how convenient it must be for a merchant receiving goods in the docks, out of many vessels from many countries, to go about among the packages with a mere French mètre measuring-rod in his CHAP. XIII.] PYRAMID WEIGHT MEASURE. 199 hand. For by that obtaining their cubical bulks, he would thence know simultaneously their weights also.