tian derah of 25.48 inches is
practically one-fourth more in length than the old cubit of the city of
Memphis. Long ago Sir Isaac Newton showed, from Professor Greaves'
measurements of the chambers, galleries, etc., that the Memphis cubit
(or cubit of "ancient Egypt generally") of 1.719 English feet,[255] or
20.628 English inches, was apparently the _working_ cubit of the masons
in constructing the Great Pyramid[256]--an opinion so far admitted more
lately by both Messrs Taylor and Smyth; "the length" (says Professor
Smyth) "of the cubit employed by the masons engaged in the Great Pyramid
building, or that of the ancient city of Memphis," being, he thinks, on
an average taken from various parts in the interior of the building,
20.73 British inches.[257] According to Mr. Inglis' late measurement of
the four bases of the pyramid, after its four corner sockets were
exposed, the length of each base line was possibly 442 Memphis cubits,
or 9117 English inches; or, if the greater length of the French
Academicians, Colonel Vyse, and Mahmoud Bey, be held nearer the truth,
444 Memphis cubits, or 9158 British inches.

But Professor Smyth tries to show that (1.) if 9142 only be granted to
him as the possible base line of the pyramid; and (2.) if 25 pyramidal
inches be allowed to be the length of the "Sacred Cubit," as revealed to
the Israelites (and as revealed in the pyramid), then the base line
might be found very near a multiple of this cubit by the days of the
year,[258] or by 365.25; for these two numbers multiplied together
amount to 9131 "pyramidal" inches, or 9140 British inches--the British
inch being held, as already stated, to be 1000th less than the pyramidal
inch. Was, however, the "Sacred Cubit"--upon whose alleged length of 25
"pyramidal" inches this idea is entirely built--really a measure of this
length? In this matter--the most important and vital of all for his
whole linear hypothesis--Professor Smyth seems to have fallen into
errors which entirely upset all the calculations and inferences founded
by him upon it.

* * * * *

_Length of the Sacred Cubit._--Sir Isaac Newton, in his remarkable
_Dissertation upon the Sacred Cubit of the Jews_ (republished in full by
Professor Smyth in the second volume of his _Life and Work at the Great
Pyramid_), long ago came to the conclusion that it measured 25 unciae of
the Roman foot, and 6/10 of an uncia, or 24.753 British inches; and in
this