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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



the priests in chests of black marble, and with 

 every priest a book, in which the wonders of his 

 profession and of his actions and of his nature 

 were written, and what was done in his time, and 

 what is and what shall be from the beginning of 

 time to the end of it." The rest of this worthy's 

 report relates to certain treasurers placed within 

 these three pyramids to cuard their contents, and 

 (like all or most of what I have already quoted) 

 was a work of imagination. Ibn Abd Alkohm, 

 in fact, was a romancist of the first water. 



Perhaps the strongest argument against the 

 theory that the pyramids were intended as 

 strongholds for the concealment of treasure re- 

 sides in the fact that, search being made, no 

 treasure has been discovered. When the work- 

 men employed by Caliph Al-Mamoun, after en- 

 countering manifold difficulties, at length broke 

 their way into the great ascending passage lead- 

 ing to the so-called King's Chamber, they found 

 " a right noble apartment, thirty-four feet long, 

 seventeen broad, and nineteen high, of polished 

 red granite throughout, walls, floor, and ceiling, 

 in blocks squared and true, and put togelher 

 with such exquisite skill that the joints are bare- 

 ly discernible to the closest inspection. But 

 where is the treasure — the silver and the gold, 

 the jewels, medicines, and arms ? These 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. Naught but pure polished 

 red granite, in mighty slabs, looks 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 visitors so long expected, so long delayed. 

 But the gross minds who occupy it now, find it 

 all barren, and declare that there is nothing 

 whatever for them, in the whole extent of the 

 apartment from one end to another; nothing ex- 

 cept an empty stone chest without a lid." 



It is, however, to be noted that we have no 

 means of learning what had happened between the 

 time when the pyramid was built and when Caliph 

 Al-Mamoun's workmen broke their way into the 

 King's Chamber. The place may, after all, have 

 contained treasures of some kind ; nor, indeed, 

 is it incompatible with other theories of the pyra- 

 mid to suppose that it was used as a safe recep- 

 tacle for treasures. It is certain, however, that 

 this cannot have been the special purpose for 

 which the pyramids were designed. We should 

 find in such a purpose no explanation whatever 



of any of the most stringent difficulties encoun- 

 tered in dealing with other theories. There 

 could be no reason why strangers from the East 

 should be at special pains to instruct an Egyptian 

 monarch how to hide and guard his treasures. 

 Nor, if the Great Pyramid had been intended to 

 receive the treasures of Cheops, would Chephren 

 have built another for his own treasures, which 

 must have included those gathered by Cheops. 

 But, apart from this, how inconceivably vast 

 must a treasure-hoard be supposed to be, the 

 safe guarding of which would have repaid the 

 enormous cost of the Great Pyramid in labor and 

 material ! And then, why should a mere treas- 

 ure-house have the characteristics of an astro- 

 nomical observatory ? Manifestly, if the pyra- 

 mids were used at all to receive treasures, it can 

 only have been as an entirely subordinate though 

 perhaps convenient means of utilizing these gi- 

 gantic structures. 



Having thus gone through all the suggested 

 purposes of the pyramids save two or three 

 which clearly do not possess any claim to serious 

 consideration, and having found none which ap- 

 pear to give any sufficient account of the history 

 and principal features of these buildings, we 

 must either abandon the inquiry or seek for 

 some explanation quite different from any yet 

 suggested. Let us consider what are the princi- 

 pal points of which the true theory of the pyra- 

 mids should give an account. 



In the first place, the history of the pyramids 

 shows that the erection of the first great pyramid 

 was in all probability either suggested to Cheops 

 by wise men who visited Egypt from the East, or 

 else some important information conveyed to him 

 by such visitors caused him to conceive the idea 

 of building the pyramid. In either case we may 

 suppose, as the history indeed suggests, that 

 these learned men, whoever they may have been, 

 remained in Egypt to superintend the erection 

 of the structure. It may be that the architect- 

 ural work was not under their supervision ; in 

 fact, it seems altogether unlikely that shepherd- 

 rulers would have much to teach the Egyptians 

 in the matter of architecture. But the astro- 

 nomical peculiarities which form so significant a 

 feature of the Great Pyramid were probably pro- 

 vided for entirely under the instructions of the 

 shepherd-chiefs who had exerted so strange an 

 iufiuence upon the mind of King Cheops. 



Next, it seems clear that self-interest must 

 have been the predominant reason in the mind of 

 the Egyptian king for undertaking this stupen- 

 dous work. It is true that his change of re- 



