RECENT MEASURES AT THE GREAT PYRAMID. 399 



fore simply try to see what there is in the Pyramid, hoping only that the indica- 

 tions may be sure and unmistakable. 



The grand gallery has long since been quoted as the part of the Pyramid, 

 where time-measures may be expected to appear, — and men have also frequently 

 remarked on the " seven overlappings" which run from end to end of the gallery, 

 and form its chief architectural feature ; but the most precise testimony expected 

 by the theory was, that the whole height of the grand gallery might be found 

 seven times that of a small passage ; the height of such small passage being 

 supposed to represent a unit-day. 



Examination at the place soon showed that the small passages are not of 

 invariable height. No objection need be taken in principle to that, for men must 

 not come to this part of the Pyramid seeking standards of linear measure, these 

 things being provided elsewhere with greater accuracy than would be possible 

 here. We take the mean therefore of the vertical heights first of the passage 

 entering the north end, and second, of that leaving the south end of the grand 

 gallery, and find such quantity to be 48*4 inches. 



Now. what is the vertical height of the grand gallery ? This has been 

 extremely variously estimated, and with great difficulty by different travellers ; 

 and to put me into a more favourable position than my predecessors was the 

 object of the second instrument, with which the free and spontaneous liberality 

 of my friend Mr Coventry supplied me, viz., the long measuring rod which you 

 see stretched along both chimney-pieces. This being duly employed at many 

 places in the length of the gallery, gave as a mean for the vertical height 3395 

 inches, whose ^th is 48*5 inches; i.e., 48*4 is much rather the ^th than the Jth, 

 |th or I th of the grand gallery. 



This close approach then is the full amount of testimony that had been 

 expected to be found, or had been asked for. But the building affords more. 



Under the grand gallery, southward runs a small horizontal passage, from 

 whose total length a part equal to }th of the whole is conspicuously cut off; and 

 this passage leads into a chamber, the mean breadth of whose floor is equal to 

 this -^th of its entrance passage. 



The object of this chamber, called without any reason the Queen's chamber, 

 has been a serious puzzle to the learned. 



Hierologists have considered it was intended for the burial of some one, but 

 who was never brought to it ; and architects have considered it was merely a 

 space for storing, during the progress of the Pyramid's building, the large blocks 

 of stone which were afterwards employed in filling up the inclined entrance 

 passage from the inside. 



But if constructed merely for such a purpose, would the whitest and fairest 

 stone combined with the most exquisite workmanship in the whole Pyramid 

 have been spent on the walls of this room? There is now a coating of salt over 



