Note 30 — Chapter II · THE PYRAMIDS AND CONTEMPORARY MONUMENTS.

This will be best understood by looking at the section (Woodcut 7), in which it will be seen that the so-called coping or casing-stones were not simply triangular blocks, filling up the angles formed by the receding steps, and which might have been easily displaced, but stones from 7 to 10 feet in depth, which could not have been supported unless the work had been commenced at the bottom. On the other hand, it is difficult to understand how the casing-stones for the upper portion could have been raised up the sloping portion completed. It is probable, therefore, that the casing was commenced at the angles and was carried up in vertical planes, thus leaving a causeway of steps in the middle of each face, which diminished in width as the work proceeded; this causeway, a few feet wide only, on each face being then encased from the top downwards after the apex blocks had been laid.—Ed.