The Greek must have thought that this was the name of the whole
structure and giving it a Greek ending he called it a "pyramis."
We have changed the "s" into a "d" but we still use the same Egyptian
word when we talk of the stone graves along the banks of the Nile.
The biggest of these many pyramids, which was built fifty centuries ago,
was five hundred feet high.
At the base it was seven hundred and fifty-five feet wide.
It covered more than thirteen acres of desert, which is three times as
much space as that occupied by the church of Saint Peter, the largest
edifice of the Christian world.
During twenty years, over a hundred thousand men were used to carry the
stones from the distant peninsula of Sinai--to ferry them across the
Nile (how they ever managed to do this we do not understand)--to drag
them halfway across the desert and finally hoist them into their
correct position.
But so well did Pharaoh's architects and engineers perform their task
that the narrow passage-way which leads to the royal tomb in the heart
of the pyramid has never yet been pushed out of shape by the terrific
weight of those thousands and thousands of tons of stone which press
upon it from all sides.