as to the others, despite the superior excellence of that
structure. Or rather, the argument derives its chief force from the
superiority of the Great Pyramid. If Chephren, no longer perhaps having
the assistance of the shepherd-architects in planning and superintending
the work, was unable to construct a pyramid so perfect and so stately as
his brother's, the very fact that he nevertheless built a pyramid shows
that the Great Pyramid did not fulfil for Chephren the purpose which it
fulfilled for Cheops. But, if Smyth's theory were true, the Great
Pyramid would have fulfilled finally and for all men the purpose for
which it was built. Since this was manifestly not the case, that theory
is, I submit, demonstrably erroneous.

It was probably the consideration of this point, viz. that each king had
a pyramid constructed for himself, which led to the theory that the
pyramids were intended to serve as tombs. This theory was once very
generally entertained. Thus we find Humboldt, in his remarks on American
pyramids, referring to the tomb theory of the Egyptian pyramids as
though it were open to no question. 'When we consider,' he says, 'the
pyramidical monuments of Egypt, of Asia, and of the New Continent, from
the same point of view, we see that, though their form is alike, their
destination was altogether different. The group of pyramids of Ghizeh
and at Sakhara in Egypt; the triangular pyramid of the Queen of the
Scythians, Zarina, which was a stadium high and three in circumference,
and which was decorated with a colossal figure; the fourteen Etruscan
pyramids, which are said to have been enclosed in the labyrinth of the
king Porsenna, at Clusium--were reared to serve as the sepulchres of the
illustrious dead. Nothing is more natural to men than to commemorate the
spot where rest the ashes of those whose memory they cherish whether it
be, as in the infancy of the race, by simple mounds of earth, or, in
later periods, by the towering height of the tumulus. Those of the
Chinese and of Thibet have only a few metres of elevation. Farther to
the west the dimensions increase; the tumulus of the king Alyattes,
father of Croesus, in Lydia, was six stadia, and that of Ninus was
more than ten stadia in diameter. In the north of Europe the sepulchre
of the Scandinavian king Gormus and the queen Daneboda, covered with
mounds of earth, are three hundred metres broad, and more than thirty
high.'

But while we have abundant reason for