RECENT MEASURES AT THE GREAT PYRAMID. 391 



my measures to be, one at 26° 27', and the other at 26° 6', or one too much and 

 the other too little. But the grand gallery is a vastly superior passage, in height, 

 breadth, length, and its whole architectural character, besides being a perfectly 

 unique feature in the Great Pyramid over all the Pyramids of Egypt. 



With the extremest anxiety therefore to be accurate, did I begin to measure 

 the angle of the grand gallery by a clinometrical method. The clinometer itself, 

 one of the most accurate instruments of the kind ever made in Europe, was one 

 of the two separate instruments which my friend, Mr Andrew Coventry of this 

 Society, voluntarily presented to me before going to Egypt, as an indication of 

 his earnest desire to assist in having the Great Pyramid, if possible, better 

 measured last winter in some of its crucial features, than it ever had been before. 



In use, the fine part of the clinometer was fixed on a long and stout beam of 

 mahogany duly prepared and furnished ; and in that state the apparatus was 

 made to step up the whole distance of one side of the grand gallery from north to 

 south, and then to step down the other side from south to north, when the mean 

 of all the observations in one day came out 26° 17' 4". Other observations were 

 taken subsequently, and the mean of the whole was finally left at 26° IT 34". 



Proposition V. 



The fifth proposition depends on a further development of the theory, and 

 demands a latitude for the Great Pyramid close upon 30°. 



The large alt-azimuth instrument was well adapted to this question, and from 

 observations taken with it on the summit as well as at the foot of the Pyramid, 

 the monument was found not to be in the required latitude, but at a distance of 

 21" south of it. 



The error is small enough, no doubt, and the Great Pyramid is moreover 

 visibly nearer to the theoretical position, than any other Pyramid round about it: 

 yet there are indications that the builders knew of the residual error, and tried 

 to make it as small as possible. On no other hypothesis for instance can it be 

 explained why, with the whole of the hill top to choose upon for mere founda- 

 tion, though not for latitude, the builders placed the Great Pyramid so very close 

 to the northern side of the hill ; even dangerously close to its actual northern 

 cliff; for slickenside-scratches there prove large portions of the rocky edge already 

 to have slided off, and there is a deep cleft preparing for another such rock-slip, 

 which passes under the very north foot of the Pyramid. The builders knew it 

 too, for they not only filled up the cleft with masonry, and covered it over ; but 

 they banked up a whole hill of rubbish against the north face of the cliff outside, 

 as though to keep it up. And, hitherto, it has kept up ; but meanwhile the 

 Pyramid is realising much more nearly than most persons are aware of, the 

 favourite quotation of many travellers as to its standing " on the utmost bound 

 of the everlasting hills." (See Plate XXVII.) 



