A. MATHEMATICS AND ASTRONOMY. 3 



Smythe in his remarkable work, Our Inheritance in the Great 

 Pyramids, yet there seems to be a gradual conversion to his 

 views, or to views not materially different from his, if we may 

 judge from the remarks of Sir Henry James on the Greek 

 and Egyptian measures of length, recently published by the 

 Royal Society as prefatory to some elaborate measures made 

 by Colonel Clark, of the Ordnance Survey. Although we 

 believe the conclusions of Sir Henry James with reference 

 to Egyptian metrology are open to some criticism, it will 

 nevertheless be interesting to reproduce them in this place. 

 According to him, not only are our own measures derived 

 from those of ancient Egypt, but all the accurate results given 

 in the most ancient works on astronomy and geodesy are ex- 

 pressed in units of measures that dej)end more or less directly 

 upon those of Egypt. The ancient Egyptians employed two 

 measures of length ; namely, the common and the royal cubit. 

 Of the latter, ten specimens have been found preserved in the 

 ancient buildings of Egypt, the most perfect of which is that 

 now in Florence, which is a slab of slate or schist. The other 

 nine examples are of wood, and are generally divided into 

 seven palms, apparently with a fine saw, with as much or even 

 greater accuracy than the generality of the measures with 

 which the workmen of the present day are supplied. Of the 

 common cubit there seems to be no simple specimen now ex- 

 tant; but, on the other hand, the dimensions of some Egyp- 

 tian monuments are known in terms of the ancient common 

 cubit, so that its value can be restored. Sir Henrv James 

 concludes that the length of the royal cubit is 20.727 English 

 inches; the length of the common cubit appears to have been 

 18.240 inches. Sir Henry James suggests that it is not un- 

 likely that the common and royal cubits had some definite 

 relation to each other, like that between the link and foot of 

 surveyors' measures in our own country, and he infers that 

 probably eighty-eight royal cubits of Egypt were equal to a 

 hundred common cubits of that country. The length of the 

 English foot is exactly the average of the ancient Egyptian 

 common and royal foot, although it is probably so by acci- 

 dent only. Phil. Trans. Hoy. 80c. , London, 1S74, CLXIIL, 

 445. 



