OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. f>8» 



its having apparently most admirable qualities for a standard measure, viz., 

 extreme hardness, utter unoxidisability, perfect freedom from flaws, small expan- 

 sion from heat and extraordinary great age. 



(7.) Why of that size? 



Given, agreeably with the observations detailed, that the cubical contents of 

 the coffer are, 70,982-4 cubic inches, — let us inquire, why are they so ? or, why 

 was the coffer capacity measure, made of that particular size ? 



With the linear standard, if a similar reason be asked, the Pyramid answers at 

 once, because that length is the one ten-millionth of the earth's axis of rotation : 

 but if the question be asked an Englishman, touching his bushel,— he can only 

 say, accident ; and if the modern Frenchman, touching his " litre," — he can only 

 say, that it is the cube of an arbitrary fraction of his linear metre 



Now it is the intellectual boast of the Frenchman that his linear metre is an 

 integral fraction of a linear proportion of the earth itself, or rather, a quadrant 

 of the meridian ; then why did he not try to get a similar scientific merit for his 

 capacity measure, viz., that it is an integral fraction of the capacity of the earth ? 

 But he did not do so ; nor did he contrive for his weight measure, that it should 

 be a similar fraction of that all-important physical characteristic, the weight, of the 

 whole earth-ball ; whose general figure, and one and only property, as implied by 

 the French metrical system, is, that of being a curved line, like the boomerang of 

 an Australian savage — a flaw, certainly, in the scientific recommendation of the 

 French system. Then how does the same point fare in the Pyramid ? 



I had been quite at a loss to find out any reason there, for the size of the 

 coffer ; until certain features of the Pyramid itself led me to an idea, which was 

 not in my mind before. Over the entrance door into the chamber containing the 

 cofier, are five vertical parallel lines, or, as some say, a space divided into 

 five equal parts. This should have reminded any one of the Pyramid standard, 

 and kept him true to that, as indicating the foundation of what was within. 



Now 50^ — 125000, and that is much more than the cubic contents of the 

 coffer ; besides indicating a rectangular figure for the earth. Three dimensions 

 must be taken, but they belong to a spherical body, or, as the latest geodesists 

 have shown, to an ellipsoid with three axes^ viz., the Polar, and the major and 

 minor of the Equator; and this seemed to be intimated by the three curved 

 hollows in the antechamber, described by many authors, and pictured in our 

 Plate XXV. fig. 5. Reducing the cube of 50 to a sphere's contents, will how- 

 ever not give the coffer's contents ; it will give the same number of places of 

 figures, but their value is too small. 



Seeing, however, that weight-measure usually goes with capacity ; and this is 

 typified in the ante-chamber, by the suspended block of granite in the 4th groove, 

 close to the semicircular hollows; and being reminded by the 5 chambers of 



