Papers On The Great Pyramid.

This descending passage and subterranean chamber appear to have been all that Avas knoAvn to the Ancients . Not only Avas the entrance itself said to be kept secret , but the ascending passages were sealed , with immense blocks of stone prepared and placed in the building during its construction , ancl then , when all was completed , slid doAvn to the position they Ai'ere intended to fill , the noble dimensions of the Grand GaUory , according to M . Maillet , affording plenty of storage room for prepared stones sufficient to block up more passages than have hitherto been discovered . * Hermetically sealed at

its junction Avith the descending passage by the great portcullis block , said to have weighed from 50 to 70 tons , the ascending passage remained undiscovered until about the year 820 A . m , when , according to Arab tradition , the Caliph Al Mamoun directed a forced entrance to be made into the Pyramid . In his day no signs of the outer entrance Avas visible , and he had only tradition to guide him to select the centre of the northern face for his search . Commencing some tiventy feet above the base the forced

entrance struck the descending passage near the point at which the ascending passage began , the workmen having been guided thither just at the time when they Avere becoming rebellious at the apparent fruitlessness of their task by the fall of a heavy stone .

" In the fall of that particular stone , " says Professor Smyth , " there almost seems to have been an accident that Avas more than an accident . Energetically , however , they instantly pushed on hi the direction of the strange noise , hammers , ancl fire , and vinegar being employed again and again , until breaking through a Avail surface , they burst into the hollow Avay , ' exceeding dark , dreadful to look at , and difficult ' to pass , ' they said at first , Avhere the sound had occurred . It Avas the same IIOIIOAV way , or ,

properly ,. the Pyramid ' s inclined and descending entrance-passage , Avhere the Romans of old , ancl if they , also Greeks , Persians , and Egyptians , must have passed up and doAvn in their occasional visits to the subterranean chamber and its unfinished , unquarriedout floor . Tame and simple used that entrance passage to appear to those ancients Avho entered in the right Avay , and , as the builders intended , from above ; but UOAV it not only stood before another race , ancl another reli gion , but ivith something that the others

never saAV , viz ., its chief leading secret , for the first time since the foundation of the building , nakedly exposed . A large angular-fitting stone , that had made for ages Avith its loAver flat side a smooth and polished portion of the coding of the inclined and narrow entrance-passage , quite , unclistinguishable from any other part of the Avhole of its line , had now dropped on to the floor before their eyes , and revealed that there ivas just behind it , or at , and in that point of the ceiling which it had covered , the end of another passage clearly ascending therefrom , and toAvards the south , out of this descending one .

"But that ascending passage itself Avas still closed by an adamantine portcullis , or Either stopper , formed by a series of huge granite plugs of square Avedge-like shape dropped or slided down , and then jammed in immoA'ably , from above . To break them in pieces Avithin the confined entrance-passage space , and pull out the fragments there , was enthely out of the question ; so the grim creAv of Saracen Mussulmans broke aAvay sideways , or round about to the Avest , through the smaller , ordinary masonry , and so up

again ( by a huge chasm still to be seen , and indeed , still used by all Avould-be entrants mto the fuither interior ) , to the neAvly-discovered ascending passage , at a point past the terrific hardness of its loAver granite obstruction . They did up there , or at an elevation ahevo , and a position . beyond the portcullis , find the passage Avay still blocked , but the nuing material at that jiart ivas only limestone ; so , making themselves a very great hole in the alongsidethey there wielded their tools with the long

masonry , energy on , tair blocks Avhich presented themselves to their vieAV . But as fast as they broke up and palled out the pieces of one of the Mocks in this strange ascending passage , other blocks above it , also of a bore just to fill its full dimensions , slided down from above , ancl still what should be the passage for human locomotion was solid stone filling . No help , however , lor the workmen . The Commander of the Faithful is present , and insists