360 
Proceedings of the Poyal Society 
know. And equally am I ignorant why direct measurement should 
not be equal to the problem ; for there, defined by the incised 
corner sockets, is a length marked in a levelled surface of founda- 
tional rock, and capable, when certain modern, adventitious mounds 
of rubbish are cleared away, of being measured as accurately as any 
base-line that modern surveyors have measured on any part of the 
earth’s surface. 
Therefore, if modern men do not yet know that Pyramid base- 
side length accurately, whose is the fault, but their own ; and instead 
of vilifying the character of the Great Pyramid, it would he more 
to the purpose, were they, even now at the eleventh hour, to take 
shame to themselves, and send out a strong party of surveyors 
and measurers, to undertake the work they have not yet performed, 
and with all those same means and appliances, which they employ 
in any other case where good lineal measures over long distances 
are required. 
THE SACRED CUBIT OF THE HEBREWS. 
In his pages 257 and 258, the Proceedings author states, rather 
ambiguously, that Professor Smyth believes that the length of the 
base-side of the Great Pyramid, when measured with a standard 
whose length is the ten-millionth part of the semi-axis of the 
earth,* exhibits the number of days and parts of a day in the year; 
that that standard is the Pyramid Cubit; that it is the same in 
length as the Sacred Cubit of the Hebrews — such cubit measuring 
25 Pyramid inches, = 25'025 British inches ; and that the whole 
idea, apparently, of the metrical theory of the Great Pyramid, is 
built upon the correctness of this Hebrew cubit datum. 
The author then goes on more distinctly to attack that datum, 
and to show that it is exceedingly incorrect : That Sir Isaac New- 
ton came long ago to the conclusion that the true length of the 
Sacred Hebrew Cubit was 2P82 inches, from which it must not be 
altered : And that Professor Smyth, in taking the means of Sir 
Isaac Newton’s original quantities, and representing them as 25’07 
* According to Captain Clarke’s two limits already given, such fraction 
must lie between 25-026 and 25-024 British inches ; wherefore I have usually 
taken 25-025 ± *001 British inches as the practical quantity to apply : in 
so far I believe in accordance with the eminent and exemplary authority of 
Sir John Herschel. 
