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LIEUT. -COL. A. R. CLARKE ON STANDARDS OF LENGTH. 
3rd. The Second Pyramid, according to the measures of Colonel Howard Vyse and 
Mr. Perking, has a base of 707*5 feet square, or 700xl‘011 feet. 
4th. The Third Pyramid has a base, according to Vyse and Peering, of 354-5 feet, 
or 350 Egyptian feet square, of 1-013 English foot exactly. 
We may therefore confidently assume that 1-013 foot was the true length both of the 
ancient Greek and the ancient common Egyptian foot, and that the length of the common 
Egyptian cubit was 18-240 inches. 
We have in the British Museum a double royal cubit , found in the ruins of the 
Temple of Karnak in Egypt ; and I found its length to be 41-40 inches, and that of the 
single cubit consequently 20-70 inches, or 1-725 foot. 
The pyramid which stands in the middle of the three, before the Great Pyramid (that 
of the daughter of King Cheops), has a base, according to Vyse and Perring, of 172-5 
feet square, and therefore 100 royal cubits square exactly. 
But the same authors give the breadths of no less than seven of the passages in the 
pyramids, including the entrances to the First, Second, and Third Pyramids, all of 41-5 
inches (two cubits of 20-750 inches). 
Dourstiier, from the measures of the nilometer at Elephantine and of three or four 
cubits found in the ruins of Memphis, which almost exactly correspond with each other, 
estimated the length of the royal cubit at 20-721 inches (see Cqndee, ‘ Dictionnaire des 
Poids et Mesures ’). 
Looking to these facts, and feeling it almost certain that the common and the royal 
cubit had some definite relation to one another, like that between the link and foot of 
our own country (66 feet equal 100 links), I infer that the most probable length of the 
royal cubit was 20-727 inches, and that 88 royal cubits were equal to 100 common cubits 
of 18-240 inches. 
This does not admit of rigid demonstration. The dimensions of Vyse and Perring 
seem to be given to the nearest half inch, and the measures of length sold in this country 
differ from one another as much as the length of the double cubit in the British Museum 
differs from its estimated length. 
Henry James, Mayor-General. 
[Note. — Since writing the above I have had an opportunity of consulting Don 
Y. Vazquez Queipo’s ‘ Essai sur les Systemes Metriques &c.,’ in which he gives a 
description of ten royal cubits which have been found from time to time in the ancient 
buildings of Egypt. He has numbered these from 1 to 10, and given the lengths of 
four of them, and the mean length of all the Standards found. 
m. inches. 
No. 5. Stone =0-52650 or 20-728 
8.1 (=0-52514 „ 20-675 
9. jwood-j =0-52598 „ 20-708 
10.J (=0-52448 „ 20*649 
Mean length of all the Standards= 0-52500 ,, 20-669 
