THE TOOLS OF THE PYRAMID BUILDERS. 339 
What the jewels were is not yet known. The range of possible materials is 
limited to five minerals — beryl or emerald, topaz, chryso-beryl, sapphire and 
diamond. Experiments made with beryl and sapphire show that their edges will 
fail under far less pressure than is necessary to produce cuts such as above de- 
scribed. Some amorphous stone is needed, and it is only the scarcity of diamonds 
which makes us obliged to refer to corundum as a likely agent. 
The forms of the tools were just such as our modern experience has led us 
to use in the present generation. Long straight saws, circular disc saws, solid 
drills, tubular drills, hand gravers, and lathe tools were all made on the principle 
of jewel points set in a metallic base, while hammer and chisel, pick, and ham- 
mer-dressing were also freely used where suitable. The straight saws were cer- 
tainly as much as eight feet in length, as they cut a granite coffer seven feet six 
inches long from end to end. Their thickness varied from ^17 ii^ch, as on large 
blocks of basalt, down to -^-^ inch on a small syenite trinket. The principal ex- 
amples of sawing are the granite coffer of the Great Pyramid, on which the saw 
has been twice run too deep, and on each side of which the grooves of the saw 
may be seen ; the granite coffer of the Second Pyramid, where the saw has been 
run too deep on the bottom, though the marks are polished out elsewhere; and a 
great pavement of basalt one-third acre in area, containing some thousands of 
blocks, all sawn into form and finely fitted together. This last adjoins the Great 
Pyramid, and is probably coeval with it. A fragment from it is shown in Fig. 2. 
A hand specimen of sawing in grey syenite, picked up at Memphis, is here illus- 
trated (Fig. 3). It is probably a piece of a statuary's waste, and is sawn on four 
sides, and has a cross cut also on the top. 
Of circular saws we have but one evidence as yet; this is a slice of diorite, 
(Fig. 4), with the repeated circular sweeps so familiar to our eyes on steam-sawn 
Fig. 3. Fig. 4. 
timber. These must have been produced by the successive revolutions of the 
most prominent cutting point at the side of a disc edge set with jewels; and though 
the surface has been polished sufficient traces of the lines remain to show their 
character, and to prove by their exact equality, uniformity of cut, and regular 
spacing apart, that they are not due to any casual or accidental cause. It has 
been suggested that the marks might have been produced by a series of points 
set on a flat rotating face for planing down the flat bottom of a dish ; but beside 
the fact that no flat-bottomed dishes are known, and that the polishing lines cross 
the surface in all directions, it would need greater skill to set a row of stones on 
