Adams, Walter M.: The house of the hidden places: a clue to the creed of early Egypt from Egyptian sources (London, 1895)

v.] The Standard of Space. 157

according to Mr. Flinders Petrie, it is equal
" to the finest work of the optician." On the
occasion of the visit of the Empress Eugenie
to Egypt, in 1869, one of these casing-stones
was measured in situ by Mr. W. Dixon, and
found to contain just 25 "025 British inches.
But the relation of this length to the polar
radius (or semi-axis) of the earth is of the
very last importance in universal measurement.
Several years ago Sir John Herschel pointed
out that our inch is contained in the earth's
polar radius just 250,250,000 times ; so that if
that unit be increased by its thousandth part
(less than the fineness of the finest hair) it will be
contained in the polar radius just two hundred
and fifty million times. Since therefore this
stone contains twenty-five inches so increased,
it measures the'earth's polar radius exactly ten
million times; and as the Egyptians were
certainly familiar with the decimal system,
expressing units, tens, hundreds, thousands,
and millions by distinct hieroglyphs, this stone