373 
of Edinburgh, Session 1867 - 68 . 
who did everything they could to annoy and crush the patriotic 
spirit of the Egyptians, by ransacking their tombs, polluting their 
temples, overturning their statues. And certainly, if by leaving out 
to rust in the dewy night-air a few iron gauges, the Persian Cam- 
byses could have spoiled, nay destroyed, the Egyptian national 
measure of length; — would he not most assuredly have done so? 
This first point of comparison then, is no problematical, but a 
certain and proved, superiority of the Great Pyramid over any little 
iron gauges for national standards. And a second similar point is, 
that taking account of all the various lengths which man has to 
measure, and the importance for accuracy of having to multiply the 
standard as little as possible, — a length like a side of the Great 
Pyramid base, of more than 9000 inches, and that in a material pre- 
served by nature at a practically equal temperature and constant 
length, — must be preferable to something that a man might put into 
his waistcoat pocket; but have proportionally large temperature 
and other corrections to apply to it. 
In the third place, it is not right to say that our modern practical 
standards are many thousandfold more delicate, and infinitely more 
refined, than those of the Great Pyramid. For while some of the 
modern standards, when they have passed out of the hands of their 
makers, have been found on testing after a few years to be from 
TToToth to To"oVo"oth wrong, and while the ordinary divided scales 
in opticians’ shops may be found from 3 ^ to -g-oVo-th wrong, — the 
base-side of the Great Pyramid, according to the description of its 
masonry by Colonel Howard Vyse (see note p. 325), must have 
admitted of measure to less than 0'01 of an inch at either end, or 
equivalent to -g^-oV o"oth of the whole ; i.e. if, in all justice, the 
same refined means of now making the measurements were to be 
employed there, as are so freely spent on our ordinary modern 
standards at home. 
Evidently, in fairness, either the Great Pyramid’s base-side 
should be as carefully measured, and with reference to the state in 
which its builders left it, — as are our modern standards with regard 
to their makers ; or the modern standards should be treated as the 
Pyramid’s base-side has been hitherto, and have a few thousand 
tons of rubbish accumulated over them ; in which case who could 
even guess what size they might or might not be. In either case 
