Perhaps the most interesting result of his work, apart from the evidence which he gathered as to Egyptian methods of working stone, was his discovery, behind the Second Pyramid, of the barracks in which the skilled masons who were permanently employed on the building lived while the work was going on. These were capable of containing easily about 4000 men. The rest of the 100,000, who, as Herodotus tells us, were employed in the building of the Great Pyramid, were doubtless merely labourers employed during the three months of high Nile, when work on the land was impossible, to bring up the blocks of stone and leave them ready for the skilled hewers and masons to work upon. As to the methods of these skilled workmen, evidence of the most interesting kind was accumulated. It was found that the great blocks of stone were sawn by means of bronze saws over nine feet in length, and equipped with jewelled cutting points. The sarcophagi of hard granite or basalt were thus sawn to shape with the most remarkable accuracy, while they were hollowed out by cutting rows of holes with tubular drills also set with jewelled cutting points. The chief difference between this kind of ancient Egyptian work and modern practice with diamond drills is that the ancient work is undeniably superior to the modern. “Truth to tell, modern drill cores cannot hold a candle to the Egyptians; by the side of the ancient work they look wretchedly scraped out and irregular.” “There has been no flinching or jumping of the tool,” says Petrie again, speaking of a drill core from Gizeh, “every crystal, quartz, or felspar has been cut through in the most equable way, with a clean irresistible cut.” Our wonder at the mighty mass of the Pyramids of Gizeh, then, is not to be mere wonder at the barbaric power which summoned myriads of slaves and forced them to toil till by sheer brute force they had piled up these mountains of stone. Brute force, unguided and unorganised, would never have built the Pyramids, though millions instead of thousands had been employed, and for centuries instead of decades, but would only have led to disaster and confusion. The wonder of the Pyramids is that five thousand years ago there was found a race whose keen intelligence so clearly understood the need and the marvellous power of organised and trained human labour, architects and engineers who were capable of directing the energies of a hundred thousand men without confusion towards a clearly foreseen end, and craftsmen who were capable of producing, with tools whose material seems to us pathetic in its inadequacy, results which put to shame the best achievements of men using the finest modern tools. The recent excavations in the Gizeh Pyramid Field, directed by Dr. G. A. Reisner, have added much to our knowledge of the subordinate tombs of the period, and of the life of the times.