Chap. II.
EGYPTIAN.
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By a series of levels, that were carefully taken by the French engineers at the end of thelast century, it was found that the surface of the Arabian Gulf at Suez, at high water, wasthirty-two feet six inches above that of the Mediterranean at Tyneh at low water; and itis interesting to inquire how the waters were retained in the canal, with such a differenceof level. Diodorus Siculus (lib. i. cap. 1.) states, that gates or sluices were ingeniouslyconstructed, which opened to afford ships a passage through, and then were quicklyshut again ; and Strabo (lib. xvii.) mentions a euriplus (a single or perhaps a double gate),which Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus) constructed, when he completed this work, and whichafforded an easy passage from the sea to the canal.
Pyramids. — Of the numerous pyramids found in Upper and Lower Egypt , only thoseof Geezeh are mentioned by Herodotus , and were the first examined by the moderns.
In Nubia , there are remaining upwards of eighty, constructed in stone, and burntor unburnt brick; at Abooseer, Abooroash, Sakkarah , Dashour, Assur , Nourri, and manyother places, at a distance of several hundred miles apart. The date of the earliest has beenassumed as upwards of 2000 years, and of the latest as 600 years, before Christ.
The absence of all hieroglyphics, as well as any indication of an arch, in those of Geezeh,near Cairo , have occasioned most writers to consider their origin as earlier than the others.
These pyramids, nine in all, are built on a projection of the Libyan chain of mountains,where the calcareous rock has been reduced to a level platform ; but what quantity of theoriginal mountain was left to form a core of the several structures has not as yet beenthoroughly ascertained. Had the emperor Napoleon’s orders been carried out, we should,by the demolition of one of those most ruined, had the means of accurately judging oftheir construction.
These royal sepulchres bear so strong a resemblance to earth-works and tumuli, thatthey appear to have had a common origin; the sepulchral chambers, which contained theentombed, are usually hollowed out of the native rock ; above w'hich is a mass of super-structure, either of solid masonry, or, as we suppose, only partly so. The kings of Egypt appear to have been the first who thought of covering their mounds with regular courses ofmasonry. That mountains could be easily transformed into pyramids we can readily con-ceive ; and by a judicious cutting, as much might be taken away as would afford a sufficientquantity of stone to build up the several courses to the apex; and in all probability such apractice suggested to Denocrates the idea of converting a mountain into a nobler figure,and astonishing the world by carrying out a more useful application of such labour.
The platform upon which these pyramids are based is in length about 6890 feet, and inwidth, from north to south, about 4920 feet. The rock contains many fossils common tolimestone, as nummulites, belemnites, oysters, Sec. Sec.; the French engineers took greatpains in ascertaining its height above the mean level of low-water in the Nile , which theyfound to be about 164 feet.
What is most interesting in the study of these vast and ancient structures, is the mannerin which the materials were worked, transported, and lifted to their respective levels; andfinding, as we do, among the earlier pictures and bas-reliefs discovered in Egypt , the sametools represented in the hands of the mason as we use at the present day, as the round-
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