In the apartment known as the King’s Chamber, the walls and roof are of a highly polished granite, in slabs of great size. The only article of furniture in it is a sarcophagus of red granite, seven and a half feet long, three feet wide, and nearly four feet high. It is too large to be moved through the passage, and must have been placed in the room before the roof was covered. It is supposed that it contained a wooden coffin with the mummy of the king, and that these were taken away when the pyramid was first opened and plundered. In the construction of the pyramids, arrangements were made for closing the passages with blocks of granite, which have greatly retarded all attempts at exploration. It is supposed that there are other apartments yet undiscovered in the Great Pyramid; and at some future day an enterprising and patient explorer may be rewarded with important revelations. Nearly a thousand years ago, the Great Pyramid was visited, and plundered, and the work of destruction has been renewed at various intervals since that time. But notwithstanding the centuries that have passed since the first visit, new apartments and passages have been discovered within the past thirty years, and several important facts in the history of the pyramids have been obtained from the hieroglyphics on the stones of the interior. Another pyramid near the great one was explored in 1837; a sarcophagus was found, and with it was a mummy case of King Menkuré, but the mummy was gone where the woodbine twineth, or somewhere else. Near the pyramids there is a great number of tombs, some built above the surface, and some excavated in the rock. The Arabs have opened nearly all the tombs and plundered them of their contents. They have no respect for dead Egyptians, and whenever they find the entrance to a tomb beneath the sands that have been blown from the desert, they quickly open the receptacle and search it for articles of value. The Egyptians used to embalm the bodies of their dead with the greatest care. Professors of the art of embalming were numerous; and judging by the extent of their work, they must have been in constant practice. The first step in the Egyptian method was to put the body in a sort of spicy pickle, where it was kept for two or three months. The viscera and all internal organs were removed to give a better chance to the pickle; and when the work was sufficiently advanced, the body was dried, filled with preserving gums and spices, and properly bandaged. The bandaging of a mummy was one of the fine arts, and sometimes a hundred yards of cloth would be required for a single subject. Every toe and finger had its separate bandage, and the preserving articles were so soaked into the bandages and plastered over them, that there was sometimes more gum and bandage than body. [Sidenote: PREPARING A MUMMY.] [Sidenote: MUMMIES BURNED FOR FUEL.]