e
angle of inclination, though directed southwards instead of northwards.
Assuming this to be the case, though for my own part I cannot see why we
should do so (most certainly we have no _a priori_ reason for so doing),
we should have 26 deg. 18' as about the required angle of inclination,
whence we should get about 3 deg. 42' for the distance of the Pole-star of
the pyramid's time from the true pole of the heavens. The difference may
seem of very slight importance, and I note that Professor Smyth passes
it over as if it really were unimportant; but in reality it corresponds
to somewhat large time-differences. He quotes Sir J. Herschel's correct
statement, that about the year 2170 B.C. the star Alpha Draconis, when
passing below the pole, was elevated at an angle of about 26 deg. 18' above
the horizon, or was about 3 deg. 42' from the pole of the heavens (I have
before me, as I write, Sir J. Herschel's original statement, which is
not put precisely in this way); and he mentions also that somewhere
about 3440 B.C. the same star was situated at about the same distance
from the pole. But he omits to notice that since, during the long
interval of 1270 years, Alpha Draconis had been first gradually
approaching the pole until it was at its nearest, when it was only about
3-1/2' from that point, and then as gradually receding from the pole
until again 3 deg. 42' from it, it follows that the difference of nine or
ten minutes in the estimated inclination of the entrance passage
corresponds to a very considerable interval in time, certainly to not
less than fifty years. (Exact calculation would be easy, but it would be
time wasted where the data are inexact.)

Having their base properly oriented, and being about to erect the
building itself, the architects would certainly not have closed the
mouth of the slant tunnel pointing northwards, but would have carried
the passage onwards through the basement layers of the edifice, until
these had reached the height corresponding to the place where the
prolongation of the passage would meet the slanting north face of the
building. I incline to think that at this place they would not be
content to allow the north face to remain in steps, but would fit in
casing stones (not necessarily those which would eventually form the
slant surface of the pyramid, but more probably slanted so as to be
perpendicular to the axis of the ascending passage.) They would probably
cut a square aperture through