Note 21 — MORE OBSERVATIONS MADE IN EGYPT, BY Guilandinus, Alpinus, and others.

These proportions of the chamber, and those which follow of the length and breadth of the hollow part of the tomb, were taken by me with as much exactness as it was possible to do; which I did so much the more diligently, as judging this to be the fittest place for the fixing of measures for posterity. A thing which hath been much desired by learned men, but the manner how it might be exactly done, hath been thought of by none. I am of opinion, that as this Pyramid hath stood three thousand years almost, and is in no whit decayed within, so it may continue many thousand years longer: And therefore that after-times measuring these places by me assigned, may hereby not only find out the just dimensions of the English foot, but also the feet of several nations in these times, which in my travels abroad I have taken from the originals, and have compared them at home with the English standard. Had some of the ancient Mathematicians thought of this way, these times would not have been so much perplexed, in discovering the measures of the Hebrews, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and other nations. Such parts as the English foot contains a thousand, the Roman foot on Cossutia’s monument (commonly called by writers Pes Colotianus) contains nine hundred sixty seven. The Paris foot a thousand sixty eight. The Spanish foot nine hundred and twenty. The Venetian foot one thousand and sixty two. The Rhinland foot, or that of Snellius, one thousand and thirty three. The Bracio at Florence one thousand nine hundred and thirteen. The Bracio at Naples two thousand one hundred. The Deran at Cairo one thousand eight hundred and twenty four. The greater Turkish Dike at Constantinople, two thousand two hundred.