;

Jerusalem temple, could be brought from the river to the site the base level being 140 feet above the upper cubit of the Nilometer at Rouda, or Rhodda, that is, about 130 feet above the valley of the Nile. This was said to have occupied ten years in the construction, and to have been faced or cased with stone, and adorned with hieroglyphics. It was five stadia long. What was a stadium? Some say 600 feet; a French authority gives 610 feet; Mr. Agnew says 603. This would make it over 3,000 feet long.

Diodorus wrote that it had disappeared in his day. It is only another proof of Greek inaccuracy. Professing to see, he gave only what he heard. Mr. John Greaves, Oxford Professor of Astronomy in 1637, believed the Greek historian, and did not look; contenting himself with, "there is nothing now remaining." Norden, the Dane, was there just a hundred years after, and noticed what he called the bridge; "There remains still a sufficiently considerable part of that admirable bridge to form a just idea of its whole structure, and of the use they made of it. There are likewise at the end of the third pyramid some remains of another bridge."

Pococke saw and described its ruins. An earlier foreigner gives an account of the remnant of this causeway, which he traced toward the Nile for 1,500 feet, when it was lost in the alluvium. But while he, too, observed traces of one leading to the third pyramid, he says nothing of one to the second. Richardson, when noting it, deemed that it was the road constructed by Saladin when he stripped the outer covering of the pyramid for his buildings in Cairo. Modern authorities conclude that it may be traced E.N.E. of the pyramid for 1,200 feet. Agnew expresses this opinion :-"I believe this great

causeway led up to the eastern side of the great pyramid, and terminated in front, at 159 feet from the base, or at the eastern range of the circle describable about the base."

HOW IT WAS BUILT.

One reputed architect has informed the world that the whole was constructed of pisé. Water, by elaborate machinery, was led up to the required heights to mix with the sand, &c., to set in blocks of the needed size, and formed themselves tier by tier in the moulds. Mr. Perring thought scaffoldings were employed. Sir Gardner Wilkinson refers to the cutting away of the projecting angles, when they "smoothed the face of them to a flat inclined surface as they descended." This will meet the difficulty of its being finished downward.

Herodotus, the enigmatical historian, rather than the simple one, had before given this story. Dr. Lepsius, the German scholar, has his way of looking at it. "At the commencement of each reign," says he, "the rock-chamber destined for the monarch's grave was excavated, and one course of masonry erected upon it. If the king died in the first year of his reign, a casing was put upon it, and a pyramid formed; but if the king did not die, another course of stone was added above, and two of the same height and thickness on each side; thus, in process of time, the building assumed the form of a series of regular steps. These were cased over with stones, all the angles filled up, and stones placed for steps. Then, as Herodotus long ago informed us, the pyramid was finished from the top downwards, by all the edges being cut away, and a perfect triangle left."

Mr. Melville, the mystic, author of Veritas, has his view

of the transaction; saying, "Herodotus tells us the pyramids were finished downwards, and unquestionably they were. Books, learned books, as the writers fancy, have lately been published to explain this passage. Large blocks of stone have been supposed to have been lifted to their places, and then cut as required, and the débris thrown to the base. Oh, folly !"

This is the story of the Greek :-" Having finished the first tier, they elevated the stones to the second by the aid of machinery constructed of short pieces of wood; from the second, by a similar machine, they were raised to the third, and so on to the summit. Thus there were as many machines as there were courses in the structure of the pyramids, though there might have been only one, which, being easily manageable, could be raised from one layer to the next in succession; both modes were mentioned to me, and I know not which of them deserves most credit."

Sir H. James, of the Ordnance Department, thinks the working rule of construction was by two poles, one horizontal, ten feet long, and the other vertical, of nine feet; as, "the inclination of each edge of the pyramid is what engineers call ten to nine." But Sir Edmund Beckett, as an architect, demurs; remarking, "I do not at all agree with him that the builders worked by any such inconvenient rule as that-carrying up diagonally, slanting standards at the corners, and making the courses 'lineable by eye with them, however easy it may sound theoretically.".

THE STEPS.

He who has once been hauled up by the three muscular, good-tempered, but bakshish-loving so-called Arabs, but really

Egyptian fellahs, will not forget the steps. The ascent is by the north-east angle, where the stones are sufficiently knocked about to give a better tread.

Herodotus wrote nearly 2300 years ago:

"This pyramid

was built in the form of steps." He adds that some call them little altars. When he tells us that one of these stones is thirty feet, we stare. He may mean cubic feet, as he calls the least of them that size. M. Grobert declares they vary from 1 foot 5 inches to 4 feet in length. He noticed a gradation. The first tier gave him an average of 3 feet 10 inches; the second, 3 feet 6 inches; the third, 3 feet 1 inch; then, 2 feet 11 inches; 2 feet 8 inches; 2 feet 3 inches. Mr. Perring, the accurate surveyor, gives the average of these courses at from 2 feet 2 inches to 4 feet 10 inches. About the largest stone is one 9 feet long and 64 broad. Mr. Fergusson the architect has the average at 30 inches. The stones diminish as they approach

the top.

One authority gives an elevation of 223 inches for the fifth course of masonry; 869 for the twenty-fifth; 1686 for the fiftieth; 3052 for the hundredth; and 5830 for the total vertical height. The Queen's chamber is said to be on the twenty-fifth course; and the King's on the fiftieth course.

The number of steps has been a most unnecessary puzzle. Pococke, there in 1743, notes the difference from 207, Greaves's number, to 260, the number of Albert Lewenstein. But he goes on to say, as Mallet, who also was very exact, counted 208, it is possible the number of the steps is 207 or 208, though I counted them 212." Thevenot, in 1655, made 208; Denon, in 1799, 208; while Lewenstein, or Lewenstainius found 260; Vausleb, in 1664, 255; Sandys, in 1610, 255. Bellonius got 250;

Lucas, 243; Johannes Helfricus, 230; and Grimino, 210. Siccard, in 1711, counted 220; Davidson, in 1763, 206; Beckett, 210; Grobert, in 1798, 205, with three crumbled ones, or 208. Fergusson has the number 203; while M. Dufeu has 202, the last two being in the centre of the upper platform. Prosper Alpinus, in 1591, could only count 125. The majority give 208.

The mortar, or cement, varies according to the work.

used for passages or casing, it was of pure lime. But Perring, to whom we are so indebted for his work in 1837, found the ordinary mortar to be an odd mixture of pounded bricks, gravel, crushed granite chippings, and Nile mud. Sometimes it proved nothing but a simple grout, or liquid mortar, of sand and gravel only.

One architectural estimate of the time to rear the pyramid is as follows: allowing fifteen miles for carriage, and 300 days a year of ten hours a day for labour, the time for quarrying, elevating, and finishing would be 164 years. Herodotus, whose words need sometimes an interpreter, talks of 100,000 men and twenty years; that is, we may say, 10,000 men, as many as could work at it, for 200 years.

SIZE.

According to Perring, the original quantity of masonry was 89,000,000 of cubic feet, or 6,848,000 tons. As far as is known, the passages and chambers make but one-sixteen-hundredth part of the block. He states the present base is 12 acres, 3 roods, 3 poles; the former, with the casing, was 13 acres, 1 rood, 22 poles. The Egyptians had a great dislike to visitors prying about the place, particularly with a measure in their hands. A sheik once drew M. Grobert aside, and said, "It is useless