The great pyramid passages and chambers

LETTER XI.

Train en route for Port Said. Thursday, 24th June, 1909.

DEAR BRETHREN,— This morning, at 6 a.m., John and I climbed to the outer end of the air-channel which leads from high up the north face of the Great Pyramid, down into the King’s Chamber away in the heart of the building. Before Col. Howard Vyse discovered the use of the two air-channels connected with the King’s Chamber, and cleared them both of debris, their inner ends on the north and south walls of the chamber (Plate XV) had given rise to many curious conjectures. Many of the older investigators believed that they led to other hitherto undiscovered apartments in the Pyramid. It was a common practice formerly to fire a revolver into them in order to hear the reverberating thunder-like echo. The Queen’s Chamber also was discovered in 1872 A.D. to possess a pair of ventilating channels—Plate XIX. In this respect, the Great Pyramid stands unique, as not one of the many other pyramids in Egypt have airchannels to their chambers.

343 Owing to the amount of crumbling debris lying on the masonry courses on the exterior of the Pyramid, wind and rain tend very readily to carry sand into these airchannels, and stop them up;; it is believed also that the Arabs throw stones into them. Although both the north and south channels of the King’s Chamber were thoroughly cleared out by Col. Howard Vyse at great trouble and expense (it took several men six weeks’ constant labour to clear the north one), they were again blocked when Professor Smyth visited the Pyramid, and still remained in that condition at the time of Professor Petrie’s investigations. Neither of these workers attempted to clear them again ; but a few years ago Mr Covington was successful in clearing the south channel ; though he has not yet succeeded in completely clearing the other. There is always a more or less strong current of air blowing through the south channel, up or down according as the wind blows from the north or south. It is sometimes strong enough to blow out the light of a candle when it is held inside the channel's inner mouth.

344 The outer end of the north channel has been widened inward for about 37 feet of its course—Plate IX. The channel itself measures only about 9 inches square, but this excavated portion is large enough (about 3 feet by 2 feet 9 inches) to allow a man to walk down in a stooping posture. The floor and west wall of the channel are still preserved, the excavators, whoever they were, having cut away the roof and east wall.

345 At the inner end of the north air-channel, similar excavating or “tunnelling” is to be seen. The excavator at this place was M. Caviglia, who, in 1817 and 1837, caused this work to be done in the hope of finding the apartment to which he supposed this channel to lead. He did not begin his work from the King’s Chamber itself, doubtless

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