1 86 The Great Pyramid in Egypt. [April, 



art architecture of subsequent days and human schools ; as 

 in fact, too, some latter-day writers, thinking no grand 

 architecture possible without ornament for ornamentation's 

 own sake, have evolved out of their own internal conscious- 

 ness and applied to the Great Pyramid. But Colonel 

 Howard Vyse's happy discovery of two of the lowest row of 

 that pyramid's original outside casing-stones still in situ 

 near the middle of the northern side of .the base, and 

 beginning their angular slope at once from the broad flat 

 " pavement " there, has demonstrated the Great Pyramid's 

 general form to be decidedly such as to illustrate an ever- 

 lasting geometric truth, rather than merely to adorn an 

 architectural fancy of the passing hour. 



The Colonel's discovery gave also an excellent opportunity, 

 so marvellous were both the original exactness of the 

 workmanship and the perfect preservation of those great 

 bevelled blocks of stone, to determine their precise angle 

 of shape ; and he made it by two different methods, — 

 not, however, without a certain rather puzzling small 

 error therein, — to be somewhere between 51 51' and 51 52'. 



This was, neverthless, as compared with all his predecessors, 

 most respectable work; and yet when its mean result 

 was employed soon after, as giving the Great Pyramid's 

 whole angle, — certain London critics exclaimed, and not 

 without some wit, that that was rather too exaggerated a 

 case of deducing the ex pede Herculem, for them to swallow. 

 But they need not have disturbed themselves : for, as I 

 have shown in Part I., p. 33, my own long subsequent 

 observations of all four of the grand arris lines, comprising 

 the entire Pyramid within them, gave for the mean sides the 

 equivalent of 51 51', and some seconds. 



Or, if other proof of more multitudinous character be 

 required for the universal public, they have only to dig in 

 the heaps of broken material encumbering now every side of 

 the Pyramid, to find innumerable fragments of the casing 

 stones which once covered the whole of the tall triangular 

 flanks : and among these fragments they will often find 

 precious examples with remnants of the outside bevelled slope 

 in connection with either the upper or lower horizontal worked 

 surfaces. I myself found no less than nineteen such pieces, 

 or two from the south, five from the west, five from the east, 

 and seven from the north side, and they gave the mean angle 

 as between 51 °4o/ and 51 58'. While a more remarkable 

 and unexpected testimony still was derived from measuring 

 the azimuthal angles of an otherwise incomprehensible system 

 of far separated and huge trenches cut anciently into the rock 



