form and correspond is itself a size or standard which has not been
yet fixed with any exactness. Professor Smyth, in speaking of the
calculations and theoretical dimensions of this coffer--as published by
Mr. Jopling, a believer in its wonderful standard character--critically
and correctly observes, "Some very astonishing results were brought out
in the play of arithmetical numerations."

* * * * *

(4.) _The dilapidation of the Coffer._--Thirty years ago this stone
coffer was pointed out, and indeed delineated by Mr. Perring, as "_not_
particularly well polished," and "chipped and broken at the edges."
Professor Smyth, in his late travels to Egypt, states that he found
every possible line and edge of it chipped away with large chips along
the top, both inside and outside, "chip upon chip, woefully spoiling the
original figure; along all the corners of the upright sides too, and
even along every corner of the bottom, while the upper south-eastern
corner of the whole vessel is positively broken away to a depth and
breadth of nearly a third of the whole." Yet this broken and damaged
stone vessel is professed to be the _permanent_ and perfect miraculous
standard of capacity-measure for the world for "present and still future
times;" and, according to Mr. Taylor--that it might serve this purpose,
"is formed of one block of the hardest kind of material, such as
porphyry or granite, _in order_ that it might _not_ fall into decay;"
for "in this porphyry coffer we have" (writes Professor Smyth in 1864)
"the very closing end and aim of the whole pyramid."

* * * * *

(5.) _Alleged mathematical form of the Coffer erroneous._--But in regard
to the coffer as an exquisite and marvellous standard of capacity to be
revealed in these latter times, worse facts than these are divulged by
the tables, etc., of measurements which Professor Smyth has recently
published of this stone vessel or chest. His published measurements show
that it is not at all a vessel, as was averred a few years ago, of pure
mathematical form; for, externally, it is in length an inch greater on
one side than another; in breadth half-an-inch broader at one point than
at some other point; its bottom at one part is nearly a whole inch
thicker than it is at some other parts; and in thickness its sides vary
in some points about a quarter of an inch near the top. "But," Professor
Smyth adds, "if calipered