PYRAMIDS OF GEEZEFI. 
This view is taken from a high rocky ground, above a fountain, where there are 
some sycamore and palm-trees, and looking nearly due north-west towards the Great 
Pyramid, that of Cheops, on the right. 
The table-land (of rather soft limestone rock) upon which these marvellous structures 
are raised, has an average level of about 150 feet above the valley of the Nile. This 
rock is their foundation: within it and beneath the Pyramids are excavated deep and 
extensive passages and chambers. Such excavations are found under both the Great 
Pyramids; that on the left being known as the Second Pyramid, or the Pyramid of 
Cephrenes: hut the excavations are deeper and more extensive beneath that of Cheops. 
The whole surface is also excavated wherever a side is presented from ledge to 
ledge in the stratified structure of the rock: where the tombs of thousands of the 
ancient inhabitants of Memphis are seen in every direction. A large mass of ruined 
structure near the foreground on the left, was probably the commencement of another 
pyramid. The Sphinx, raising its head above this rocky solitude, was cut out of 
a large projecting and isolated mass of the same rock. 
The entrance to the Pyramid of Cheops lies on the northern or opposite side 
to the spectator, though an opening, a false one, appears on the southern in this 
view: this Pyramid is now truncated, and some vast blocks lie on its summit in 
confusion. The Pyramid of Cephrenes is complete to its apex: it was covered with 
casing-stones, many of them at the top are still in situ, and from the smooth surface 
which they present make access to its summit a perilous adventure, but an Arab 
may always be found to exhibit his temerity and sure-footedness by ascending to 
this point for a dollar. 
So enormous is the mass of the Great Pyramid, that it is estimated to contain 
6,000,000 tons of stone. Its base is 746 feet, and its height is even now nearly 120 
feet higher than St. Paid’s. Herodotus informs us that 100,000 men were employed 
twenty years in its erection. 
The researches which have been made by Col. Vyse, with the aid of Mr. Pering, 
and the results which have been published in Col. Yyse’s splendid work on the Pyramids 
of Gizeh, can only be appreciated by reference to that work itself. All the Pyramids 
were examined by them. That they were tombs, and tombs only, has been fully 
proved by these researches. Sarcophagi have been found in the three great Pyramids 
of Geezeh; in the Third, known as the Pyramid of Mycerinus, a coffin was discovered, 
and on its wooden lid the prenomen of the monarch by whom the Pyramid was 
erected: and in the great Pyramid the cartouche has been found of Cheops, or Suphis, 
its founder. 
But these discoveries have not settled the question, When wei'e these Pyramids 
erected? Wilkinson has powerfully advocated their very high antiquity, and carries 
them back to the twenty-second century before the Christian era. But Wathen, who 
has brought much ingenuity to the investigation of the subject, has arrived at the 
