86 Notices of Books. [January, 
and that the largest and oldest amongst them is the Great 
Pyramid of Gizeh. How utterly contrary to fact the former 
part of this assertion is may be gathered by reference to page 
189 of the preceding volume of this journal, and to the writings 
of Howard Vyse, who explored the Pyramids more extensively 
than anyone else in modern times. We quote his words :*— 
‘«“The Pyramids of Middle and Lower Egypt are thirty-nine in 
number. They are situated on the western side of the river, 
and chiefly on the desert hills which form the western boundary 
of the valley of the Nile.” 
I was in the Nome, Latopolitis. 
33 ” 29 Memphitis. 
” 9 Heracleopolitis. 
3 ” 9 Crocodilopolitis. 
Total 39 
In order to make up even this small total number there are 
included many which were originally small and unimportant, and 
now become mere rounded rubbish heaps of decay-stricken bricks 
orunwrought stone. Hadthere been somany as the aforesaid ‘‘ hun- 
dreds,” they must necessarily have become a long- maintained Egyp- 
tian institution, and it would have occupied the Egyptians all 
through their history to build them. But quite contrary to that, it 
is abundantly proven that the idea of a Pyramid was introduced to 
the land at once perfect, full, and completely developed; it was 
to some extent, never entirely, never in anyone of its essential 
characteristics, imitated by a few succeeding generations, in per- 
petually descending dimensions and order of construction, until 
finally, and that long before the zenith of ancient Egypt, when 
both kings and subjects had wealth and power enough to erect 
any and every kind of building for themselves, Pyramid building 
had altogether ceased among them. Hence the Pyramids of 
Egypt occupied but a short period only of the early history 
of that people, just as they stretch over but a small portion of 
the earlier settled part of the country—namely, from the apex of 
the Delta to about fifty miles south thereof. 
It is stated in the work before us, that in the lowest chamber 
of the Pyramid there “is a well formerly supplied with water 
from the Nile.” The fact, however, is that this hole is not 
a well, but merely a shaft sunk by Howard Vyse and Perring, in 
1837, in their search after a lower chamber; and as the bottom 
of this shaft does not reach down to the level of the highest Nile 
inundations of the present day, when they are hypsometrically 
10 feet above their ancient rise, it is perfectly clear, that whereas 
the subterranean chamber is near 40 feet higher still, the waters 
of the Nile could never have reached it by natural flow or 
* Pyramids of Gizeh, by Colonel Howarp Vysg, vol. iii. p. 1. 
