The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879Various
History
The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879
Various
Arts -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals
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° 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 such slant stones corresponding to the
size of the passage elsewhere, so as to make the four surfaces of the
passage perfectly plane from its greatest depth below the base of the
pyramid to its aperture, close to the surface to be formed eventually by
the casing stones of the pyramid itself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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