travellers. They stand so high upon a rising rock, that they have never been reached by the waters of the Nile. The marble and granite, which have been found in their neighbourhood, are but fragments, and probably belonged to other buildings; for the stones of the pyramids are soft and free, and appear to have been found in the adjoining rocks.

The pyramids of Egypt depart but a little from that part of the geometrical definition, which describes them as solid bodies. The largest pyramid of Giza, the size of which we have attempted to describe, is the only one of those huge masses whose interior parts appear to have been examined. No exterior aperture seems to have been left; and the labour of opening them is difficult and tedious. The one which lies farthest to the north, and of which we have been more particularly treating, has several apartments, or chambers of a considerable size. In one end of these apartments, there is a trough or stone

coffin, formed of a large and solid block of granite. The end for which it was intended, remains undiscovered; but every visitant has found it empty; and when struck, it emits a sound, which is repeatedly echoed through the cavities and openings of the whole pyramid. The passages which lead to those apartments are sometimes so small and straitened with sand, that the unexperienced visitant, though laid at full length, must occasionally be dragged forward by his conductor.

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The passages and apartments of the largest pyra mid are thus described by Mr. Browne :—

After leaving the pyramids of Gizą you are presented with others farther to the south, which shoot far into the deserts of Lybia. They are scattered from Hawâra, through Dashûr and Saccarra, One has been noted at Medûn, which is not constructed in a tapering form, but consists of stories one above another, each of them being less in diameter than the lower; and the sides of the dif ferent stories are somewhat sloped, so as to appear at a distance something in the form of a common pyramid, but broader, and perhaps not finished at the upper part. Some of those pyramids are constructed of unburned bricks, are all of them less perfect than those of Giza, and were probably built at a more early period."

Two kinds of brick have been observed in Egypt; one of them burned, and the other dried in the sun: the

h Strabo Geog. lib. xvii, p. 1160; Pocock, edit. folio, London, A. D. 1743, vol. ii, p. 49, &c.; and Shaw's Travels, p. 414.

latter kind being intermixed with chopped straw, which gives them a more durable quality; and thus we understand the nature of that work, in which the children of Israel were engaged, when they made use of straw in making brick. We see also the hardship to which they were exposed, when it was required of them to accomplish their former tasks, though not provided with straw as usual, but compelled to search and provide it for themselves. It now appears to be well ascertained, that neither the whole nor any part of the pyramids consists of the natural rock, shaped and moulded in its place; but, on the contrary, it is evident, that they are wholly built, and reared by the hand of art.1

To know by whom these superb stuctures were reared exceeds the means

1 Norden, edit. Copenhagne, folio, A. D. 1755, vol. i, p. 87; Genesis, ch. v, v. 7, &c.; Bryant's Mythology, vol. iii, p. 532; and Browne, ch. xiii; Denon, vol. i. Pr 312, &c.

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and the power of our inquiry. Their origin is ascertained by no record, and is lost in the darkness of remote times. The most ancient historian describes them as antiquities; and though fable has mentioned princes, by whom some of them were built, yet the existence or era of the prince, as well as the date of the pyramids, are vague and uncertain.

Various and contradictory have been the opinions which different inquirers have formed concerning the purpose for which these pyramids were raised. Can it be supposed that such enormous masses were formed for the sole purpose of receiving the lifeless body of an ambitious prince? The trough, or sarcophagus may have been designed for some religious purpose; and the tapering form of the pyramids might be made to imitate the flame of fire which the eastern nations early adored; and the vicinity of the pyramids, being ancient depositories of the dead, still suggests that they may be tombs or sepulchral monu,