Length of Sacred Cubit 24.754 inches.
" Cubit of Memphis 20.628 "
The cubit measured by Mersennus (_see_ p. 362, vol. ii. _Life at the
Pyramids_) was 23-1/4 Paris inches, and Mr. Greaves estimated the Paris
foot as equal to 1.068 of the English foot; therefore 23.25 +
1.068=24.831 was the length of this cubit, if we take Greaves'
proportion of the Paris to the English foot; but by the more exact
determination of the proportion of the Paris to the English foot made at
the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton, it is found to be as 1 to
1.06576 and 23.25 + 1.06576=24.780 English inches, which differs only in
excess .026 from the length of the Sacred Cubit determined by Newton.
The double Royal Cubit of Karnak, which is in the British Museum, was
found by Sir Henry James to measure 41.398 inches; the length of the
single cubit was therefore 20.699 inches, and differs only in excess
.071 inches from the length of the cubit of Memphis, as determined by
Newton.
It will be observed that the lengths of the cubits derived by Newton
from the length of the King's chamber are shorter than the measured
lengths of the cubits which have come down to us. But if
we add 1/5 or = 4.140 to the length of the
Karnak cubit = 20.699,
------
we have 24.839 for the Sacred Cubit.
The one measured by Mersennus = 24.780 and the
------
mean of the two = 24.810, whilst the
length derived by Newton was = 24.754, showing
------
a difference of only .056 between the
======
length of the Sacred Cubit derived from the actual lengths of the two
cubits which have come down to us, and the length of the Sacred Cubit
derived by Newton from the length of the King's chamber.
The method adopted by Professor P. Smyth, to find the length of the
Sacred Cubit, in p. 458, vol. ii. _Life at the Pyramids_, is also wrong
in principle. He has no right to take the means between the limits of
approach, or to say that the Sacred Cubit was, according to Sir Isaac
Newton, 25.07 inches, when, as I have shown in his own words, Sir Isaac
says it was 24.754 inches.
VI.--PROFESSOR SMYTH'S RECENT COMMUNICATION TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY ON 20TH
APRIL 1868.
It has been already stated (see footnote, p. 248) that, on the 20th
April Professor Smyth brought before the Royal Society a new
communication on the pyramids, the principal part of which consisted of
a criticism upon the preceding observations, and a defence of his
hypotheses regarding the Great Pyramid. His chief criticisms related to
points already adverted to, and answered in footnotes, pp. 234, 248,
etc. In addition, he expressed great dissatisfaction that the quotation
from Sprenger, in Vyse's Work, quoted in footnote, p. 237, was not
extended beyond the semicolon in the original, at which the quotation
ends, and made to embrace the other or latter half of the sentence,
viz., " ...; and that they appear to have repeated the traditions of the
ancient Egyptians, mixed up with fabulous stories and incidents,
certainly not of Mahometan invention."[276] But this latter half, or
the traditions about the pyramid builders, Surid, Ben Shaluk, Ben
Sermuni, etc., who lived "before the Flood," etc. etc., did assuredly
not require to be quoted, as they had really nothing whatever to do with
the object under discussion--viz., the opening of the sarcophagus under
the Caliph Al Mamoon, and the accounts or history of the pyramids, as
given by Arabian authors themselves.
In the course of this communication to the Royal Society, Professor
Smyth did not allude to or rescind the erroneous table and calculations
from Sir Isaac Newton regarding the Sacred Cubit, printed and commented
upon in some of the preceding pages (see _ante_, p. 244, etc.) But, at
the end of the subsequent discussion he handed round, as a printed
"Appendix" to his three volume work, a total withdrawal of this table,
etc., and in this way so far confessed the justice of the exposition of
his errors on this all-vital and testing point in his theory of the
Sacred Cubit, as given in p. 243, etc., of the present essay. He
attributes his errors to "an unfortunate misprinting of the calculated
numbers;" and (though he does not at all specialise what numbers were
thus misprinted) he gives from Sir Isaac Newton's Dissertation on the
Sacred Cubit a new and more lengthened table instead of the old and
erroneous table. For this purpose, instead of selecting as he did,
without any attempted explanation in his old table, _only five_ of Sir
Isaac Newton's estimations or "methods of approach," he now, in his new
table, takes _seven_ of them to strike out new "means." The simple
"mean" of all the seven quantities tabulated--as calculated, in the way
followed, in his first published table--is 25.47 British inches; and the
"mean" of all the seven means in the Table is 25.49 British inches.
Unfortunately for Professor Smyth's theory of the Sacred Cubit being
25.025 British inches, either of these numbers makes the Sacred Cubit
nearly half a British inch longer than his avowed standard of length--an
overwhelming difference in any question relating to a _standard_
measure. What would any engineer, or simple worker in metal, wood, or
stone, think of an alleged _standard_ measure or cubit which varied so
enormously from its own alleged length? But, surely, such facts and such
results require no serious comment.
In this, his latest communication on the Pyramids, Professor Smyth also
offered some new calculations regarding the measurements of the interior
of the broken stone coffin standing in the King's Chamber. Formerly
(1864), he elected the cubic capacity of this sarcophagus to be 70,900
"pyramidal" cubic inches; latterly he has elected it to be 71,250 cubic
inches. According, however, to his own calculations, he found,
practically, that it measured neither of these two numbers; but instead
of them 71,317 pyramidal inches (_see_ vol. iii. p. 154). The capacity
of the interior of this coffin does not hence correspond at all to the
supposititious standard of 71,250 pyramidal cubic inches; but in order
to make it appear to do so he has now struck a "mean" between the
measurement of the interior of the vessel and some of the measurements
of its exterior, in a way that was not easily comprehensible in his
demonstration. But what other hollow vessel in the world, and with
unequal walls too (_see_ p. 233), had the capacity of its interior ever
before attempted to be altered and rectified by any measurements of the
size of its exterior? What, for example, would be thought of the very
strange proposition of ascertaining and determining the capacity of the
interior of a pint, a gallon, a bushel, or any other such standard
measure by measuring, not the capacity of the interior of the vessel,
but by taking some kind of mean between that interior capacity and the
size or sizes of the exterior of the vessel? According to Messrs. Taylor
and Smyth, this standard measure--along with other supposed perfect
metrological standards--in the Great Pyramid is "of an origin higher
than human," or "divinely inspired;" and yet it has proved so incapable
of being readily measured, and hence used as a standard, that hitherto
it has been found impossible to make the _actual_ capacity of this
coffer to correspond to its standard theoretical or supposititious
capacity; whilst even its standard theoretical capacity has been
declared different by different observers, and even at different times
by the same observer, as shown previously at p. 231.
VII.--METROLOGICAL TABLES AND TESTS OF THE EUROPEAN RACES. (_See_ p.
238.)
Professor Smyth believes that among the nations of Europe the metrology
used will be found closer and closer to the Hebrew and "Pyramid"
standards, according to the amount of Ephraimitic blood in each nation.
He further inclines to hold, with Mr. Wilson, that the Anglo-Saxons have
no small share of this Israelitish blood, as shown in their language,
and in their weights and measures, etc. After giving various Tables of
the metrological standards of different European nations, Professor
Smyth adds, "It is not a little striking to see all the Protestant
countries standing first and closest to the Great Pyramid; then Russia,
and her Greek, but freely Bible-reading church; then the Roman Catholic
lands; then, after a long interval, and last but one on the list, France
with its metrical system--voluntarily adopted, under an atheistical form
of government, in place of an hereditary pound and ancient inch, which
were not very far from those of the Great Pyramid; and last of all
Mahommedan Turkey." Subsequently, when speaking of British standards of
length, etc., Professor Smyth remarks,--"But let the island kingdom look
well that it does not fall; for not only has the 25.344 inch length not
yet travelled beyond the region of the Ordnance maps,--but the
Government has been recently much urged by, and has partly yielded to, a
few ill-advised but active men, who want these invaluable hereditary
measures (preserved almost miraculously to this nation from primeval
times, for apparently a Divine purpose) to be instantly abolished _in
toto_,--and the recently atheistically-conceived measures of France to
be adopted in their stead. In which case England would have to descend
from her present noble pre-eminence in the metrological scale of
nations, and occupy a place almost the very last in the list; or next to
Turkey, and in company with some petty princedoms following France, and
blessed with little history and less nationality. 'How art thou fallen
from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!' might be then, indeed,
addressed to England with melancholy truth. Or more plainly (Professor
Smyth adds), and in words seemingly almost intended for such a case, and
uttered with depressing grief of heart, 'O Israel, thou hast destroyed
thyself!'" (Professor Smyth's _Life and Work at the Great Pyramid_,
1867, vol. iii. p. 598.)
In his previous work in 1864, Professor Smyth denounced also, in equally
strong terms, the French decimal system of metrology, considering it
as--to use his own words--"precisely one of the most hearty aids which
Satan, and traitors to their country, ever had to their hands." (_Our
Inheritance in the Great Pyramid_, p. 185, etc.)