A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



All subsequent ages have marvelled at the pyramids, 

 some of which date from about the year 4000 B.C., 

 though we may note in passing that these dates must 

 not be taken too literally. The chronology of ancient 

 Egypt cannot as yet be fixed with exact accuracy, but 

 the disagreements between the various students of the 

 subject need give us little concern. For our present 

 purpose it does not in the least matter whether the 

 pyramids were built three thousand or four thousand 

 years before the beginning of our era. It suffices that 

 they date back to a period long antecedent to the 

 beginnings of civilization in Western Europe. They 

 prove that the Egyptian of that early day had attained 

 a knowledge of practical mechanics which, even from 

 the twentieth - century point of view, is not to be 

 spoken of lightly. It has sometimes been suggested 

 that these mighty pyramids, built as they are of great 

 blocks of stone, speak for an almost miraculous knowl- 

 edge on the part of their builders ; but a saner view of 

 the conditions gives no warrant for this thought. Dio- 

 dorus, the Sicilian, in his famous World's History, 

 written about the beginning of our era, explains the 

 building of the pyramids by suggesting that great 

 quantities of earth were piled against the side of the 

 rising structure to form an inclined plane up which 

 the blocks of stone were dragged. He gives us cer- 

 tain figures, based, doubtless, on reports 'made to 

 him by Egyptian priests, who in turn drew upon the 

 traditions of their country, perhaps even upon written 

 records no longer preserved. He says that one hun- 

 dred and twenty thousand men were employed in the 

 construction of the largest pyramid, and that, not- 



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