1871.] The Great Pyramid in Egypt. 185 



to be nearly without error for placing a modern altazimuth 

 instrument upon ; and there, too, were the chiselled-out, 

 elevated borders of the socket on three sides, but on the 

 fourth, only a line, an indented line about 0*08 inch broad 

 and 0*02 deep, ruled on the flatted rock surface: but a line so 

 straight, so true, so steady, and so firm, that it proved itself 

 at once the work of a master hand. 



We could, moreover, hardly fail to recognise whose hand 

 it was, so precisely similar appeared the line in all its finer 

 graphiological features to two other lines which I had 

 already discovered on the walls, far down the dark vault of 

 the entrance passage of the Great Pyramid; lines introduced 

 there, too, in a manner that showed they must have been 

 the veritable work of the original builders, and were well 

 adapted to call attention to a singular change required at 

 that point, for apparently symbological purposes, in the 

 angular direction of the joint lines on either side. 



Thus closely, then, have we of the present day all four 

 corners of the ancient square base still accurately defined ; 

 though, alas ! for modern science and scientists too, not yet 

 measured by them with sufficient exactness. For, although 

 the greatest linear error, in terms of one of the sides as 

 unity, has been given by the only series of socket measures 

 yet published in full,* as being not more than 0*001, still the 

 greater part of that quantity may be shrewdly assigned as 

 the " probable error " of the observations themselves. And 

 similarly with the only observation yet published of the 

 angle at one corner included between two adjacent sides, 

 and which came out within 0*0002 of the required right 

 angle. 



The base, therefore, of the Great Pyramid is, to fully as close 

 as modern measures have yet been carried, a sensibly perfect 

 square ; and it only remains to ascertain, for the due defini- 

 tion of " shape," what is the angle of rise of the triangular 

 sides, or flanks, of the building, from the four edges of the 

 said base. 



This angle, the builders could make anything that they 

 pleased under go , and their structure would have still been 

 a true mathematical pyramid. Or, again, they could also, if 

 they pleased, though in that case to the destruction at once 

 of the pure mathematical idea, have begun by raising up 

 from the base an ornamental rectangular pedestal, with 

 vertical sides, fluted mouldings, and other trickery of the 



* See " Life and Work at the Great Pyramid," by C. Piazzi Smyth. 

 1867, vols. ii. and iii. : Edmonston and Douglas, Edinburgh. 



VOL. VIII. (O.S.) — VOL. I. (N.S.) * 2 B 



