188 The Great Pyramid in^Egypt. [April, 



Unfortunately, the whole modern world can give no 

 satisfactory answer to this simple question. Our own 

 country, even by itself, has spent millions of money on their 

 Home survey, the Indian survey, and surveying in the 

 Colonies. It has spent largely, too, on surveying the 

 archseology of various lands, and is spending most liberally 

 at this very moment on that of India ; but on the measure- 

 ment of the earliest archaeological monument of the whole 

 world, and that which lends itself at once, by the whole 

 nature of its form and construction, most absolutely 

 and completely to become the subject of exact mensuration, 

 viz., the Great Pyramid, our rulers have not thought fit to 

 spend a farthing; unless, indeed, some of them are responsible 

 for that mere spurt of an effort made in 1869 by the officers 

 who were returning from the survey of Sinai, and whose 

 probable error in one of their base-side measurements was 

 apparently something more than 300 times as large as what 

 was incurred on a base line measured in India, about the 

 same time, by the officers of the trigonometrical survey there. 



But what are we, who desire to theorise on the Great 

 Pyramid, to do at the present moment with these conflicting 

 modern numbers before us, for the true length of the Pyramid's 

 ancient base-side ? 



The simple mean of the whole, or 9143 inches, might be 

 a fair approximation; or, again, weighting each result accord- 

 ing to the care and means employed in obtaining it, perhaps 

 9160 inches might be closer to the truth. But on neither 

 of these numbers, nor any neighbouring ones to them obtained 

 by similar judgment processes, do I venture to decide ab- 

 solutely. I only insist that we are bound to hold that the 

 true quantity must be somewhere between — perhaps not far 

 from midway between — the extreme limits of the widest 

 observers ; such conclusion being, moreover, also borne out 

 by a comparison of all the best measured heights of the 

 Pyramid, as determined by various methods, and used, in 

 combination with the angle of slope, for deducing the length 

 of the base side. 



And then, in conclusion of this part of the subject, to 

 show that we have, after all, some valid grounds for con- 

 firming the popular feeling of all the world throughout all 

 ages, for the so-called " Great Pyramid " being really such, — 

 I subjoin a list of all the Pyramids of Egypt, similarly 

 measured — and it will be found that there is not one which 

 contests the Great Pyramid's superior size, within many 

 times even the most extravagant estimate yet made of the 

 probable error of the measures. 



