1 87 1.] The Great Pyramid in Egypt. 193 



reading by three pairs of opposite verniers to ten seconds each ; 

 and second, an altitude-azimuth circle, donated years ago to 

 the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, by the famous Professor 

 Playfair, and reading off both its circles by micrometer 

 microscopes to tenths of seconds. In .order to convey these 

 large instruments into the Pyramid's interior, I had of 

 course, then, to hire several Arab assistants; but the days 

 for their use came few and far between; partly, too, because 

 I had, as my experience advanced, to prepare with my own 

 hands wooden stands and other helps to observation adapted 

 in shape and size to the strange corners, slopes, projections, 

 &c, where the instruments required to be placed. 



But all these painful and laborious steps having been duly 

 gone through, and the separate measures, whether accordant 

 or discordant, printed in full elsewhere,* the reader may 

 not care for more now than merely to gather some of the 

 cream of the results, and hear what they seem to tell. 



Part III. 



Of Why These Things were thus Made of Old. 



I . Wherefore the Position of the Great Pyramid. 



Perhaps the title of this third part is a shade too pre- 

 sumptuous; at least, for the safe and cautious mode on 

 which alone I propose to proceed. 



For example, touching our very first topic, or the position 

 of the Great Pyramid, have we not already shown that that 

 site is in the very centre of all the land surface, or man- 

 producing and man-supporting regions of the whole globe ; 

 and is not that quite a sufficient reason, for there, rather 

 than anywhere else, having been placed of old, — if sufficient 

 wisdom presided over its birth, — that one vast monument 

 which is full of instruction to man, and not only saw the 

 beginning of human history, but bids fair to be a witness 

 also of its termination. 



True that such central position, though in so far a fact, 

 may be only an accidental coincidence ; especially as it 

 requires a knowledge of Australia and America to make it 

 even approximately true. But then there is a sort of 

 triplicity in the fact itself which gives a certain small pro- 

 bability in favour of intention, from knowledge derived 

 somehow or from somewhere, to begin with, in rolling up 

 our ball of pyramid scientific ideas, purposes, and intentions. 



* Vol. ii. of " Life and Work," by C. Piazzi Smyth. Edmonston and Douglas, 



Edinburgh. 



VOL. VIII. (O.S.) — VOL. I. (N.S.) 2 C 



