magnificent constructions. One holds that the Great Pyramid,
at any rate, was built to embody cosmic discoveries, as the exact length
of the earth's diameter and circumference, the length of an arc of the
meridian, and the true unit of measure. Another believes the great work
of Khufu to have been an observatory, and the ventilating passages to
have been designed for "telescopes," through which observations were to
be made upon the sun and stars; but it has not yet been shown that there
is any valid foundation for these fancies, which have been spun with
much art out of the delicate fabric of their propounders' brains. The
one hard fact which rests upon abundant evidence is this--the pyramids
were built for tombs, to contain the mummies of deceased Egyptians. The
chambers in their interiors, at the time of their discovery, held within
them sarcophagi, and in one instance the sarcophagus had within it a
coffin. The coffin had an inscription upon it, which showed that it had
once contained the body of a king. If anything more is necessary, we may
add that every pyramid in Egypt--and there are, as he have said, more
than sixty of them--was built for the same purpose, and that they all
occupy sites in the great necropolis, or burial-ground opposite Memphis,
where the inhabitants are known to have laid their dead.

The marvel is, how Khufu came suddenly to have so magnificent a thought
as that of constructing an edifice double the height of any previously
existing, covering five times the area, and containing ten times the
mass. Architecture does not generally proceed by "leaps and bounds;" but
here was a case of a sudden extraordinary advance, such as we shall find
it difficult to parallel elsewhere. An attempt has been made to solve
the mystery by the supposition that all pyramids were gradual
accretions, and that their size marks simply the length of a king's
reign, each monarch making his sepulchral chamber, with a small pyramid
above it, in his first year, and as his reign went on, adding each year
an outer coating; so that the number of these coatings tells the length
of his reign, as the age of a tree is known from the number of its
annual rings. In this case there would have been nothing ideally great
in the conception of Khufu--he would simply have happened to erect the
biggest pyramid because he happened to have the longest reign; but,
except in the case of the "Third Pyramid," there is a unity of design in
the str