RECENT MEASURES AT THE GREAT PYRAMID. 395 



linear size. Chipped along all the edges and grievously broken at one corner, as 

 I was prepared to find it ; but with also, a totally unexpected ledge cut inside the 

 top and all across the western side, to a depth of 1-72 inches ; and this ledge not 

 only takes away near 4000 inches from the cubic capacity of the vessel, but 

 enables all men to say — "so! this coffer, then, this lidless box of history, this 

 " granite chest without a top, this porphyry vase of measure we have heard so 

 " much about, is nothing but a sarcophagus after all :" for the ledge is so very 

 similar to that by which the lids of sarcophagi are slided into their places. 



The case was really most egregious in one way or another ; and every student 

 of Egyptian history, on first hearing of so unexpected a discovery, cannot fail to 

 be beset according to his theoretical prepossessions, either with intoxicating 

 triumph, or the confusion of dire defeat. 



" Why were we not informed of all this by earlier travellers," some will ex- 

 claim ! And others in their agony will turn again to the magnificent engravings of 

 the so called immortal French national work on Egypt, and say, " Look at the 

 " regular and equal sides of the coffer in these exquisite pictures ; is it not impos- 

 " sible that there could have been a ledge cut into them when their portraits were 

 " taken at the end of last century ? " But then, alas ! who will be answerable for 

 the perfect accuracy of even French academicians ? 



In short, we must investigate the matter de novo, and by measures of line and 

 angle. 



My first step, therefore, was to study acknowledged sarcophagi and their lids ; 

 and here is a model of the sarcophagus of the second Pyramid and its lid. They 

 are both well preserved ; and by an ingenious arrangement of the angles of the 

 sliding grooves, combined with certain little fixing pins, they form a system which 

 locks itself when the lid is pushed into its place. 



Let us now make a similarly proportioned lid for a restored model of the great 

 Pyramid coffer and its ledge, attending though to its peculiar angles ; and then 

 we find, after pushing that lid into its place, it has, and can have, no locking 

 power whatever. Now there is a piece of clumsiness in contrivance, or inferiority 

 in execution, which we should be careful how we charge on the architects of the 

 Great Pyramid, where every other part is planned so much more skilfully than 

 in any other Pyramid ; and we may easily see, too, that the ledge is actually 

 nothing more than a portion taken out of, and away from, an originally unledged 

 and merely box-sided vessel. 



Then if that be the case, we have nothing to do with the vessel's capacity in 

 the ledged state, only with what it measured in its original unledged state ; and 

 then, did it or did it not coincide with one, precise, invariable theoretical quantity, 

 depending on the cube of ^millionth of the earth's axis of rotation or 50 inches, 

 and the mean density or specific gravity of the earth as a whole, divided by ten ? 



This last important element is not known even to modern science quite so 



