396 PROFESSOR C. PIAZZI SMYTH'S ACCOUNT OF 



accurately as it should be, but produces, with its best known determination in 

 the above expression, close upon 71,250 inches. 



Now, that is not a likely quantity for an Egyptian sarcophagus to measure 

 inside, for all that I examined were very much less, many of them only half or at 

 most |, even when treated as unledged vessels ; but when the Pyramid coffer 

 came to be measured, and with extreme care both to make the most of all original 

 traces and to correct for small errors of figure, the result then came out 71,316 

 inches. So exactly, too, is the vessel constructed for purposes, or suitably with 

 the requirements, of commensurability, that the capacity of the outside divided 

 by two = 71,160; and the mean of both = 71,238. Hence it would appear to be 

 the right vessel after all ; and the parent, as to size, of both the sacred Hebrew, 

 and ancient Saxon capacity measures. But it receives some further corrobora- 

 tion from the place in which it stands — the so-called King's chamber. 



Over the doorway outside this room is an eminent symbol of five ; and again, 

 on entering the chamber, an attentive observer finds himself in the midst of a 

 still grander masonic symbol of five ; in that the granite walls are formed of Jite 

 even courses (see Plate XXVIIL), running round and round the room at the 

 same precise height, and in a manner quite unique in the general Pyramid 

 masonry.* Each of these five courses, too, is of exactly the same thickness as 

 every other, excepting only the lowest one, and that is five inches less than the 

 rest. Not in reality, indeed, for it is an appearance produced to observation by 

 the manner in which the granite flooring is introduced within the granite walls. 



Still, why was it introduced in that manner, breaking in upon the admirable 

 equality of all the other steps of this symbol — of five, pervading the whole 

 chamber ? 



* As an illustration of the necessity of the present remeasurement, the following contradictory 



accounts by modern travellers, of the wall- courses of this room, the King's Chamber in the Great 



Pyramid, may be cited : — 



George Sandys, a.d. 1610. — " Eight stones flagge the ends, and sixteen the sides." 

 Professor Greaves, a.d. 1639. — "From the top of it descending to the bottom, there are but 



" six ranges of stone, all of which, being respectively sized to an equal height, very gracefully in one 



" and the same altitude run round the room." 



Lord Egmont, a.d. 1709. — " The walls were composed of five ranges of stone." 



Dr Shaw, a.d. 1721. — "Height (of five equal stones) = 16 feet." 



Dr Pococke, a.d. 1743. — " Six tiers of stones, of equal breadth, compose the sides." 



M, Fourmont, a.d. 1755. — " The walls were composed of six equal ranges." 



Dr Clark, a.d. 1801. — " There are onlysiz ranges of stone from the floor to the roof." 



Dr Richardson, a.d. 1817. — " Lined all round with broad flat stones of large red-grained 



" granite, smooth, highly polished, each stone ascending from the floor to the ceiling." 



Lord Lindsay, a.d. 1838. — "A noble apartment, cased with enormous slabs of granite twenty 



"feet high." 



W. R. Wilde, M.R.I.A., a.d. 1838. — " An oblong apartment, the sides of which are formed of 



" enormous blocks of granite reaching from the floor to the ceiling ." 



Mr E. W. Lane and Mrs Poole, a.d. 1843. — " Number of courses in walls of King's 



" Chamber, six." 



Sir Robert Ainslie, in 1804, copied by J. Taylor in 1859. — An engraving, showing six 



courses between floor and ceiling. 



