of Edinburgh, Session 1867 - 68 . 
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cal form and “ exquisite geometric truth,” perfectly level on its 
surface, and highly polished. “ The chest or coffer in the Great 
Pyramid” (writes Mr Taylor in 1859,) “ is so shaped as to be in 
every part rectangular from side to side, and from end to end, and 
the bottom is also cut at right angles to the sides and end, and made 
perfectly level.” “ The coffer,” said Professor Smyth in 1864, 
“ exhibits to us a standard measure of 4000 years ago, with the 
tenacity and hardness of its substance unimpaired, and the polish 
and evenness of its surface untouched by nature through all that 
length of time.” 
But later inquiries and observations upset entirely all these 
notions and strong averments in regard to the coffer. For — 
(1.) The Coffer , though an alleged actual standard of capacity-mea- 
sure, has yet been found difficult or impossible to measure. — In his first 
work, “ Our Inheritance in the Gfreat Pyramid,” Professor Smyth 
had cited the measurements of it, made and published by twenty- 
five different observers, several of whom had gone about the matter 
with great mathematical accuracy. Though imagined to be a great 
standard of measure, yet all these twenty-five, as Professor Smyth 
owned, varied from each other in their accounts of this imaginary 
standard in “every element of length, breadth, and depth, both 
inside and outside.” Professor Smyth has latterly measured it 
himself, and this twenty-sixth measurement varies again from all 
the preceding twenty-five. Surely a measure of capacity should 
be measurable ; that ought to be its most unquestionable quality ; 
but this imagined standard has proved virtually unmeasurable — in 
so far at least that its twenty-six different and skilled measurers 
all differ from each other in respect to its dimensions. Still, says 
Professor Smyth, “ this affair of the coffer’s precise size is the 
question of questions.” 
(2.) Discordance between its actual and its theoretical measure . — 
Professor Smyth holds that theoretically its capacity ought to be 
71,250 “ pyramidal ” cubic inches, for that cubic size would make 
it the exact measure for a chaldron, or practically the vessel would 
then contain exactly four quarters of wheat, &c. Yet Professor 
Smyth himself found it some 60 cubic inches less than this ; 
while also the measurements of Professor Greaves, one of the most 
accurate measurers of all, make it 250 cubic inches, and those of 
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