broad, the roof of which, in the centre, terminates in an acute angle. PYRAMIDS The walls, till the falling in of the two fides of the angle, are thirteen feet in height. Near the entrance into the room, on the left hand, is a fort of niche, in which probably the body contained in this part of the pyramid was placed upright against the wall, according. to the most ufual custom of Ægypt:

"Egyptia Tellus

"Claudit odorato post funus ftantia faxo
« Corpora *">

SIL. Ital. L. xiii.

The walls of this chamber (as indeed the whole infide of the pyramid, excepting the first descent, which is of a fort of white marble,) are of very fine granite, polished with the utmoft nicety. Returning by the fame paffage which brought you from the deep well, you afcend, for the space of one hundred and fixty feet, by a paffage of fix feet four inches broad, and about thirty in height. This canal is not of so easy a declivity as the former, though it runs ftill in the fame direction due fouth. At the end of this ascent you meet with another square paffage four feet broad, and twenty-three long, which carries you in an horizontal line into another chamber eighteen feet broad, and thirty-fix long. Its height, which is the fame as its breadth, is terminated by a flat roof, composed of seven vaft pieces of granite. At one end of this chamber is a stone cheft,

or

"Egypt enclos'd the bodies of the dead,
"Soon as the rites of burial were perform'd,
"In upright posture plac'd with perfum'd ftone."

PYRAMIDS. Or coffin, feven feet long, and three broad, including the fubftance of the ftone, it is in depth three feet, and is formed of one piece of granite; which, when ftruck, gives a found exactly like a bell. The lid of this coffin, which was probably another flat piece of granite, is no where to be found, though the places are plainly to be discovered on the top of the cheft, where it had anciently been fixed. The cheft is not in the middle of the chamber, but near one of the corners, five feet diftant from the end of the room, and the fame from one of the fides. This coffin in all probability contained the body of the founder, fince, in my opinion, it can have served no other use, than what is ufually ascribed to it, the very measurements pointing out that it was defigned for the receptacle of a human corpfe. The outfide of this pyramid is of a rough stone of very little beauty, which is given as another proof of its having been never finished. Mr. Maillet, who with great reafon contradicts this affertion, runs into a contrary mistake, affuring us, that it was not only entirely finished, (of which indeed he gives very good proofs,) but that it was covered with a fuperficies of white marble. This, however, is plainly contradicted by Herodotus, who says, that the leaft pyramid was by no means inferior in value to the others; fince, if it was exceeded in fize, it as much furpaffed them in the preciousness of the materials of which it was built; and we know, not only from the testimony of the fame author, but from the prefent condition of the pyramid, it was built only of granite. Now if the great pyramid had been covered with white marble, it would have been far fuperior to the other on account of the richnefs of its materials, which in Egypt would have been of an immenfely greater value than granite, the product of the country, always found at a very inconfiderable expence in proportion to

the