aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

STUDY OF THE PTRA]VnDS. 297
THE INTERIOR STRUCTURE.
Though the climate of Egypt is tropical, and generally dry,
time with its disintegrating forces has rapidly changed the
pyramidal monument of Gheezeh since the outside casings of
polished limestone and marble were torn off by the Arab sultans
of Cairo.
Entering the pyramid at a descending angle
of twenty-seven degrees, and wending our way downward at
first half-bent, led by Arab guides, and then up the
ascending
passage for a long distance, we entered the King's
Chamber, the floor of which rests upon the fiftieth course of
stone fonning the whole pyramidal mass.
This chamber is a
magnificent oblong apartment thirty-four feet in length,
seventeen feet broad, and nineteen feet high, formed of monstrous
3'et elegantly polished blocks of granite, but utterly
destitute of ornament, painting, or every thing save that
plain, puzzling, yet time-defying coffer. The glaring lights
gave the room a dismal appearance ; and our voices sounded
fearfully strange and sepulchral. The granite walls of the
chamber surrounding the coffer are divided into five horizontally
eofual courses ; and there is also a sign of the " division
into five " over the doorway outside. Five, it is well known,
is the ruling and most important number in mathematics.
THE PORPHYRITIC COFFER.
But this hollow, lidless, rectangular box, chest, or coffer of
imperishable stone in the center of the King's Chamber, —
what of this ? Why so very plain ? "Why lidless, and minus
any inscriptions? And, further, why much of the pyramid
made as though in subservience to it ?
When this pyramid was first broken into, remember, by
Caliph Al 3Iamoon, more than a thousand years since, he
expected to find immense treasures, with the key to all the
sciences.
Tradition has it that this pyramid had been previously
discovered, explored, and robbed by the ancient
Romans. Be this as it may, the Moslem caliph, to his great