192 The Great Pyramid in*Egypt. [April, 



occasionally, among the later ruins of it caused by man, 

 pick up specimens where the meeting of two of the worked 

 surfaces is preserved sharp up to their mutual corner line, 

 without a deficit of more than one or two hundredths of an 

 inch broad. 



Whereupon another C.E. expressed soon afterwards the 

 effect produced on his mind, by the ultimately right rock 

 for the place and purpose, though at the moment, from its 

 softness, so utterly unlikely to ordinary apprehension (and 

 there were then no previous stone buildings in the land to 

 refer to for experience), having been so unerringly chosen 

 by the designer of the Great Pyramid. But we can hardly 

 delay now for mere mental testimony, seeing that details 

 of numerical mensuration are our true subject in this place, 

 and are quite as much as we can pretend to overtake. 



Nay, indeed, even in that department also, the editor's limits 

 of space begin to warn me to contract the fuller account that 

 I had once hoped to give ; and perhaps I may be allowed 

 all the more readily by the reader thus to do, seeing that in 

 so far as the interior of the Pyramid is concerned, the battle 

 of the different mensuration testimonies extant, was in reality 

 fought out by me in 1865, at the place itself; and by the 

 only unexceptionable method, viz., that of measuring the 

 parts disputed again and again ; by taking fifty measures 

 where my predecessors had taken only two or three; by 

 working sometimes six hours a day in the solitary interior 

 of the dark monument with only my candles, measuring 

 rods, and note-books about me ; and by continuing such 

 studies day after day through several months, instead of 

 paying the place a single visit of only a few minutes' duration, 

 and then, either oppressed by Arabs, or thronged by " troops 

 of festive friends." 



Wherever the subject of measurement on those occasions 

 exhibited to me original worked surfaces of stone in tolerable 

 preservation, I attempted to make all linear measurements 

 to tenths of inches; but if the ancient surfaces were super- 

 fine, then to hundredths of inches; while the angles of the 

 descending and ascending passages, together with others for 

 testing the reputed horizontality or verticality of floors and 

 walls, were examined by three different classes of instruments, 

 of which, if one was characterised chiefly by portability, 

 the other two were splendid examples of their kind for 

 accuracy: viz., first, a clinometer, presented to me for the 

 occasion by A. Coventry, Esq., of Edinburgh, with its base, 

 120 inches long, and a central complete circle for the angles, 



