1872.] Notices of Books. 89 
to 9168 inches, has admitted the difficulty of drawing at present 
any final conclusion. Professor Smyth has furthermore pointed 
out on what grounds he at the time of writing deduced 9142 
inches as the more probable length, but with an uncertainty 
about it of = 25 inches nearly. And who will come forward to 
show (not merely assert) that Professor Smyth was not acting 
aright, in not putting implicit trust in the mean value evolved 
from the joint measures made by himself with Aiton and Inglis, 
especially when those made by the Royal Engineers in 1869 
gave 9130 inches, or a value immensely closer to his deduced 
quantity of 9142 than giro is. When, however, M. Wacker- 
barth takes the mean between the Royal Engineer’s measure 
of g130 inches and the aforesaid g110, or g120 inches as being 
the real length of the base-side, and totally ignores the more 
carefully measured quantities of the French Academicians— 
Colonel Howard Vyse and Perring—respectively 9163 and 9168 
inches, he himself, on his own showing, tampers with the 
published measures to confirm a theoretical result of Sir Henry 
James’s long since exploded; according to which it was 
sought to prove that the base contained 500 Greek cubits of 
18-2415 inches—a cubit, indeed, that was never heard of by 
any ancient Egyptian, nor known in Egypt, until 1500 years 
after the Pyramid was built; declared, too, in total disregard 
of what Herodotus told his Greek audience, viz., that the 
Egyptian cubit was the same as the Samian, Asiatic, or 
Persian cubit, which so far from being anywhere near the 
assumed quantity of 18-2415 inches, was 20°7 inches nearly ; 
and this corresponds completely with what Sir Gardner Wil- 
kinson and other modern Egyptologists have ascertained. 
More than remarkable, too, is it, after what our author has 
previously said, that he should even be found to testify to the 
same important truth. For in his table of Egyptian measures 
(page 15), evidently reprinted from an abstract of a former 
paper, published in the ‘“ Proceedings of the Royal Society of 
Edinburgh ” (vol. vi., p. 235), he distin¢tly sets forth the cubit of 
20°699 inches as a grand culminating quantity. The imme- 
diately preceding measure being an alleged equivalent of the 
Greek Szapy' = g:61925 inches, the supposed cubit of 182415 
inches not being even acknowledged as a possibly distinct 
standard quantity. It is almost useless to add that such a 
position is too glaring to need comment. 
In paragraph 2, page 6, M. Wackerbarth alleges, that whereas 
Professor Smyth had only rough stone steps to measure from, he 
nevertheless “‘ by taking means, and then again means of means, 
of different measurements of the angles of the remaining stones,” 
made his measurements being out for the side angle of the 
Pyramid, 51° 51’ 14°3' ‘= hypothetical x angle. We require to 
answer such an assertion by merely stating that anyone who will 
take the trouble to refer to “Life and Work” (vol. i1., pp. a 
VOL. Il. (N.S.) 
