^{page 243 note *} Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson thinks that the pyramids of Sakkara are probably older than the other groups of these structures, as those of Gizeh or the Great Pyramid.—See Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii. chapter viii.

^{page 246 note *} Mr Birch, however—and it is impossible to cite a higher authority in such a question—holds the cartouches of Shufu and Nu Shufu to refer only to one personage—namely, the Cheops of Herodotus; and, believing with Mr Wilde and Professor Lepsius, that the pyramids were as royal sepulchres built and methodically extended and enlarged as the reigns of their intended occupants lengthened out, he ascribes the unusual size of the Great Pyramid to the unusual length—as testified by Manetho, &c.—of the reign of Cheops; the erection of a sepulchral chamber in its built portion being, perhaps, in consequence of some ascertained deficiency in the rock chamber or gallery below.

^{page 246 note †} The Mexican Pyramid of Cholula has a base of more than 1420 feet, and is hence about twice the length of the basis of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh. See Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, book in. chap, i., and book v. chap. iv.

^{page 248 note *} Herodotus states that the Egyptians detested the memories of the kings who built the two larger Pyramids, viz., Cheops and Cephren; and hence, he adds, “they commonly call the Pyramids after Philithion, a shepherd, who at that time fed his flocks about the place.” They thus called the second, as well as the Great Pyramid, after him (iii. § 128).

^{page 248 note †} The extracts within inverted commas, here and in other parts, are from—(1.) Mr John Taylor's work entitled “The Great Pyramid—Why was it Built, and Who Built it?” London, 1859; and (2.) Professor Smyth's work, “Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid,” Edinburgh, 1864; (3.) his later threevolume work, “Life and Work at the Great Pyramid,” Edinburgh, 1867; and (4.) “Recent Measures at the Great Pyramid” in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for 1865–66.

^{page 250 note *} “Its contents,” says Mr Taylor (p. 299), “are equal in cubic inches to the cube of 41,472 inches—the cubit of Karnak—viz., to 71,328 cubic inches.” Elsewhere (p. 304) he states—“The Pyramid coffer contains 256 gallons of wheat;”—“It also contains 256 gallons of water, &c.”

^{page 252 note *} See Plate III. fig. 1, in his great folio work on the “Pyramids of Gizeh from Actual Survey and Admeasurement,” Lond. 1839. “The sarcophagus is,” he remarks, “of granite, not particularly well polished; at present it is chipped and broken at the edges. There are not any remains of the lid, which was, however, fitted on in the same manner as those of the other pyramids.”

^{page 253 note *} “The western side,” observes Professor Smyth, “of the coffer is, through almost its entire length, rather lower than the other three, and these have grooves inside, or the remains of grooves once cut into them, about an inch or two below their summits and on a level with the western edge; in fact, to admit a sliding sarcophagus cover or lid; and there were the remains of three fixing pin-holes on the western side for fastening such cover into its place.” (Vol. i. p. 85.)

^{page 253 note †} See Greaves' Works, vol. i. p. 61. Colonel Vyse adduces other Arabian authors who allude to this discovery of a body with golden armour, &c., &c., in the sarcophagus of the King's Chamber. He cites Alkaisi as testifying that “he himself saw the case (the cartonage or mummy-case) from which the body had been taken, and that it stood at the door of the King's Palace at Cairo, in the year 511” A.H. (See “The Pyramids of Gezah,” vol. ii. p. 334. And also to the same effect Abon Szalt, p. 357.) “It may be remarked,” observes Colonel Vyse, “that the Arabian authors have given the same accounts of the pyramids, with little or no variation, for above a thousand years” (vol. ii. p. 328).

^{page 257 note *} Yet this, the Memphian cubit, “need not” (somewhat mysteriously adds Professor Smyth), “and actually is not, by any means the same as the cubit typified in the more concealed and symbolised metrological system of the Great Pyramid.”

^{page 257 note †} Godfrey Higgins, in his work on “The Celtic Druids,” shows how, among the ancients, superstitions connected with numbers, as the days of the year or the figures 365, have played a prominent part. “Amongst the ancients” (says he) “there was no end of the superstitious and trifling play upon the nature and value of numbers. The first men of antiquity indulged themselves in these fooleries” (p. 244). Mr Higgins points out that the old Welsh or British word for Stonehenge, namely Emrys, signifies, according to Davies, 365; as do the words Mithra, Neilos, &c.; that certain collections of the old Druidic stones at Abary may be made to count 365; that “the famous Abraxas only meant the solar period of 365 days, or the sun,” &c. “It was all judicial astrology. … It comes (adds Mr Higgins) from the Druids.”

^{page 260 note *} “Traite de la Grandeur et de la Figure de la Terre.” Amsterdam edition (1723), p. 195.

^{page 260 note †} “Tables Portatives de Logarithmes.” Paris, 1795, p. 100.

^{page 262 note *} “The diameter of the earth, according to the measures taken at the Pyramids, is 41,666,667 English feet, or 500,000,000 inches.” (See “The Great Pyramid,” p. 75.) “Dividing this number by 20 millions, we obtain the measure of 25 (English) inches for the Sacred Cubit” (p. 67).

^{page 262 note †} “When” (says Mr Taylor, p. 91) “the new Earth was measured in Egypt after the Deluge, it was found that it exceeded the diameter of the old Earth by the difference between 497,664,000 inches and 500,000,000 inches; that is, by 2,336,000 inches, equal to 26·868 miles.”

^{page 262 note ‡} Alleged Sacred Character of the Scottish Yard or Ell Measure.—Professor Smyth tries to show (iii. 597), that if Britain stands too low in his metrological testing of the European kingdoms and races, its “low entry is due to accepting the yard for the country's popular measure of length.” But long ago the “divine” origin of the Scottish ell—as in recent times the divine origin of the so-called pyramidal cubit and inch—was pleaded rather strenuously. For when, in the 13th century, Edward I. of England laid before Pope Boniface his reasons for attaching the kingdom of Scotland to the Crown of England, he maintained, among other arguments, the justice and legality of this appropriation on the ground that his predecessor King Atholstane, after subduing a rebellion in Scotland under the auspices of St John of Beverley, prayed that through the intervention of that saint, it “might be granted to him to receive a visible and tangible token by which all future ages might be assured that the Scots were rightfully subject to the King of England. His prayer was granted in this way: Standing in front of one of the rocks at Dunbar, he made a cut at it with his sword, and left a score which proved to be the precise length of an ell, and was adopted as the regulation test of that measure of length.” This legend of the “miraculously created ell-wand standard” was afterwards duly attested by a weekly service in the Church of St John of Beverley. (See Burton's “History of Scotland,” ii. 319.) In the official account of the miracle, as cited by Rymer, it is declared that during its performance the rock cut like butter or soft mud under the stroke of Athelstane's sword. “Extrahens gladium de vaginâ percussit in cilicem, quæ adeo penetrabilis, Dei virtute agente, fuit gladio, quasi eâdem horâ lapis butirum esset, vel mollis glarea; … et usque ad presentem diem, evidens signum patet, quod Scoti, ab Anglis devicti ac subjugata; monumento tali evidenter cunctis adeuntibus demonstrante.” (Foedera, torn. i. pars ii. 771.)

^{page 263 note *} Eslewhere (p. 45) Mr Taylor corroborates Sir Isaac Newton's opinion that the working cubit by which the Pyramid was built was the cubit of Memphis.