180 The Great Pyramid in "Egypt. [April, 



Pyramid is not founded clumsily and boorishly on mere 

 alluvial mud low down in the Nile valley, as taught by 

 some, but is raised on the top of a broad ^nd lasting hill of 

 nummulitic limestone, more than a hundred feet above the 

 level of either the Egyptian valley or the highest range of 

 its river's floods; or more exactly, for a purpose which will 

 afterwards appear, 1780 inches above the well-water level, 

 and 2580 inches (nearly) above the Mediterranean Sea-level. 

 But there is a notable manner about its emplacement even 

 there, indicating forethought and preparation on the vastest 

 scale; well illustrated, too, by a spontaneous and irrepressible 

 remark of Mr. Aiton (professionally a railway-cutting con- 

 tractor) when he visited my wife and self, then living on the 

 Jeezehhill; for he would insist, in telling workman language, 

 on the patent evidence to him, after walking about every side 

 of the Great Pyramid, that all the ground around it was 

 " excavated ground." 



Such was his technical phrase for describing what had 

 previously struck me, viz., that the whole of the original 

 top of the hill was artificially removed, or had in a manner 

 been sliced away horizontally, slice after slice, until at 

 length an admirable quality of dense, sound rock had 

 been everywhere obtained, on which to lay the foundations 

 of the new building with security, and to form a level area of 

 lasting character round about it. 



Within the intended compass indeed of the building itself, 

 certain portions of the living rock had been left standing, so 

 as to save masonry, but were only so left when of good 

 quality, and after having been cut into regular horizontal 

 steps suitably to joining on with the courses of the masonry. 

 Even the topmost surfaces, therefore, of these internal rock 

 portions of the pyramid, are not of the original surface 

 material of the top of the hill before the pyramid builders 

 began their work. 



What was that original surface then ? 



There is a hill about a mile to the south which answers 

 the question admirably. Its middle height is composed of 

 horizontal limestone strata, whose transverse sections, one 

 over the other, form a cliff towards the north ; a cliff, too, so 

 solid, so regular in its constructive layers, that one has to 

 look long and attentively to be quite sure that it is not a 

 vast Cyclopean wall of art and man's design. But no ! it is 

 Nature's own building, the edge only of one of her vast 

 platforms, whose surface in this case is covered and hidden 

 by the top of the hill, and that top is angular, rough, ragged 

 and horribly rotten, with a geologically later limestone 

 belonging to the tertiary period. 



