394 PROFESSOR C. PIAZZI SMYTH'S ACCOUNT OF 



ing that in units, whereof the peculiarly Pyramid number of five hundred millions 

 measure the whole axis of rotation. 



Such a small standard then possesses 5 x 5 or 25 of the units ; which being 

 longer than British inches by only 001 of an inch, we may call Pyramid inches; 

 while the whole 25 of them make up a length which is almost identically that of 

 the ancient sacred cubit of the Israelites as determined by Sir Isaac Newton ; 

 and very notably different from that other cubit which, according to him, they 

 used for ordinary purposes, and called the " profane cubit," because it was the 

 same as that in vogue among the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and other Gentile 

 nations. We shall allude, therefore, to a standard composed of 25 of these Pyra- 

 mid inches, as the cubit of the Pyramid ; and may have to note again and again 

 the curious triple parallelism which prevails between the inner Pyramid, sacred 

 Hebrew, and ancient Saxon measures. 



But how is that 25 inch cubit to be identified with the 9142 inch base side of 

 the Great Pyramid ? 



In this simple and suggestive manner ; — there are in that base side as many 

 lengths of that cubit as there are days in a year ; i.e., 305-25 x 25, and reduced 

 from Pyramid to British inches, the units in terms of which all our Pyramid 

 measures are expressed, amount to 9140. 



(B.) Standards of Weight. 



If weight measure is to be anything more than accidental in its origin, it must 

 be connected with the previously established linear standard, through the medium 

 of capacity measures connected with the doctrine of specific gravity. 



On this well known principle, several authors have decided on the granite 

 coffer, a hollow, lidless, rectangular vessel, cut with great skill out of a huge mass 

 of dark red granite (porphyry according to some), and carefully preserved in the 

 secluded King's chamber near the centre of the Great Pyramid, being, in its hollow 

 contents, the capacity standard, and in the weight of that content of water, the 

 weight standard of the Great Pyramid. Foremost amongst these authorities is 

 again the late John Taylor, who has further shown that the coffer is alike the 

 parent of the Hebrew chomer, and also of the old Saxon quarter, as capacity mea- 

 sures for corn, each of these being the i part of the coffer. 



This inference hinges entirely on what the measured contents of the coffer may 

 be, and though the results given by some travellers are in Mr Taylor's favour, the 

 statements of others are not a little contradictory. With eager zeal, therefore, I 

 went to the coffer one morning armed with many measuring rods, and hoping to 

 be able, in so small and simple a matter, to see immediately who was right and 

 who was wrong, — when lo ! there was an anomaly that no one, out of all the 

 various authors, had ever noticed. 



Here is a carefully constructed model of the coffer as it now stands, of ^ the 



