CHAMBER IN THE GREAT PYRAMID. 



361 



great, when I reached it, to find to the right a straight entrance into 

 a long, broad, but low place, which I knew, as well by the length as 

 the direction of the passage I had entered at, to be immediately above 

 the large room.* The stones of granite, which are at the top of 

 the latter, form the bottom of this, but are uneven, being of unequal 

 thickness. This room is four feet longer than the one below j in the 

 latter, you see only seven stones, and a half of one, on each side of 

 them ; but in that above, the nine are entire, the two halves resting 

 on the wall at each end. The breadth is equal with that of the room 

 below. The covering of this, as of the other, is of beautiful granite; 

 but it is composed of eight stones instead of nine, the number in 

 the room below. One of the carpenters entered with me, and Mr. 

 Meynard came into the passage, near the door, but being a good deal 

 troubled with the dust, and want of air, he retired. Having mea- 

 sured and examined the different parts of it, we came out, and 

 descended by the ladder. We then employed ourselves in digging 

 towards the bottom of the niche in the room below, and afterwards 

 went down and entered the first passage ; there, instead of turning 

 to the left to go out, I descended to the right, (where an opening 

 had been lately made,) one hundred and thirty-one feet ; the descent, 

 except the first four and a half feet, is cut in the rock : at the end 



* In this is the Sarcophagus. It is well observed by Greaves, that most of the authors 

 who have spoken of the purpose for which the pyramids were erected, consider them as 

 sepulchres. This is the express opinion of Strabo and Diodorus, and of the Arabian 

 writers; and " if none of these authorities were extant, yet the tomb found in the great 

 pyramid of Cheops, puts it out of controversy." i. 60. 



Although the supposition, that the great pyramid was constructed as a sepulchre be 

 generally approved, we continue to find a disagreement among different writers and 

 travellers respecting the time of its erection. The building of some of the pyramids, is 

 ascribed by Perizonius to the Israelites; Ego certe Josepho Israelitarum tempore factas 

 censenti, accesserim. JEg. orig. Invent, c. 21. See Dr. Clarke's Travels, torn. iii. Dr. 

 Hales, in his Chronology, refers them to a remote period. But it is singular, as Goguet 

 has remarked, that although Homer mentions Thebes, and its hundred gates, he has not 

 noticed the pyramids of Egypt. Is it probable he would have omitted to speak of them, 

 if they had been erected in his time? Goguet. 1. iii. epoch. 3. — Ed. 



3 A 



