The Germans have evolved a complicated system of construction from notes made by Lepsius upon the details of the masonry in different pyramids. In order that this system may be more easily understood, we give, on the opposite page, a series of representations of such a pyramid in different stages of completion (Figs. 136 to 142). A commencement was made by erecting a very narrow and perpendicular pyramid crowned by a pyramidion, like a stumpy obelisk (Fig. 136). This finished, sloping masses were erected against it so as to form, with the pyramidion of the first mass, a second pyramid. The apex of this pyramid, a pyramidion of a single stone, might be put in place and the work considered finished (Fig. 137); or, if the builder were sanguine as to time, he might seek to push on still farther. Then, at the line where the slopes of the pyramid left the earth, four perpendicular walls were erected to the height of the pyramidion. The space between the sides of the pyramid and the inner faces of these walls was filled in, and thus a kind of terrace, or huge rectangular block, was obtained (Fig. 138), which served as the core for a new pyramid (Fig. 139). This again disappeared under a pyramid of larger section and gentler slope (Fig. 140), whose sides reached the ground far beyond the foundations of the terrace. In the case of a long reign this operation might be repeated over and over again (Figs. 140 and 142). A large pyramid would thus be composed of a series of pyramidal envelopes placed one upon another. The mummy-chamber was either cut in the rock before the laying of the first course of stone, or it was contrived in the thickness of the masonry itself; as the casing of stone went on increasing in thickness, galleries were left for ventilation and for the introduction of the sarcophagus and the mummy. The mummy-chamber is always found either upon the axis of the pyramid, or in its immediate neighbourhood, and always nearer the base than the summit. [Illustration: FIG. 136. FIG. 137. FIG. 138. FIG. 139. FIG. 140. FIG. 141. FIG. 142. FIGS. 136-142.--Successive states of a pyramid, according to the system advocated in Bædeker's _Guide_.] We are told that the system of construction here set forth is rendered almost certain by the fact that "the deeper we penetrate into the pyramid the more careful do we find the construction, which becomes more and more careless as the exterior is approached. In fact, as each new envelope was commenced, the chances of its being completed became less." The mass of stone to be worked and placed was greater, while the king, upon whose life the whole operation depended, was older and nearer his death. The builders became less sure of the morrow; they pressed on so as to increase, at all hazards, the size of the monument, and trusted to the final casing to conceal all defects of workmanship.