361 
of Edinburgh, Session 1867 - 68 . 
db ‘10 British inches, made a gross mistake; for the mean, of cer- 
tain intermediate numbers printed by him, is really 25*29 . 
Now, in the first place, it must be seen pretty clearly by most 
persons that the length of the Sacred Cubit of the Hebrews cannot 
be really necessary, in a direct way, to the metrical theory of a 
building erected long before the time of Abraham. And, indeed, 
the modern Pyramid scientific theory was elaborated without any 
dependence upon it, and still stands on its own foundation and refer- 
ences to science. But after the Pyramid theory was so far worked 
out, and had produced a Pyramid cubit of a particular length, — then 
that length was compared with other cubits : and, though found 
utterly different from the cubits of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, and 
other pagan Gentile nations, — yet came very close to what Sir 
Isaac Newton had deduced for the length of the Sacred Cubit of the 
Hebrews. 
Sir Isaac Newton’s treatise was therefore examined, and while it 
was found that he looked upon his adopted result as only tem- 
porary, imperfect, and even distinctly to be replaced at a future time 
by some other person’s completer researches, — a careful re-examina- 
tion of his data, according to modern methods, led Professor Smyth 
to a slightly different quantity, as being a better approximation to 
the truth therein enveloped, viz., the length of the sacred Cubit of 
the Hebrews, than that quantity which Sir Isaac had employed. 
This difference was not of an amount to alter our most eminent 
philosopher’s grand conclusion as to the total difference between 
that Sacred Cubit of the Hebrews, and the profane cubit of the 
Egyptians,-— but only to affect a residual question of a much minor 
lineal difference, and which had not occurred to him, or to any one 
in his day. 
I fully believe, therefore, that Sir Isaac Newton himself, were 
he still alive, would allow that my deduction of 25‘07 Hh *10 
British inches, from his several data, expressed chiefly in Roman 
uncise, is a truer result than his of 25‘6 Roman unciae, interpreted 
variously by modern authors as anywhere between 24‘75, 24‘82, 
and 24‘89 British inches. 
In order that there might be no mistake about what Sir Isaac 
Newton’s opinions and data were, I reprinted in the 2nd vol. of 
“ Life and Work,” the whole of his original paper : and only com- 
