DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8#0063
(, 62 )
easily contrived for suspending, at so small an height,
in each repeated effort, the stone raised by the jacks,
however ponderous and large, when suspended, might
most easily be conducted to it's bedding : and this
suspending implement may be very simple in it's
construction, nothing more than two pieces of timber,
with a head, at their junction at top, on the principle
of the head of the king post, in a trussed roof ; which
head, if made of iron, with shoulders, (as in roofs) to
receive the ends of the timbers at right angles, would
be equal to the suspending any weight, (connected to
it by a chain of sufficient strength,) that can be embraced
in the space it extends from one leg to the other.
Whereas a machine, to suspend and elevate, at the
same time, is of a complex nature, acting by pulleys
and windlasses &c : necessary indeed for raising to
greater heights, than can be reached by jacks.
Thus might these stones have been piled from
course to course, rollers and levers might have conveyed
them to the foot of the Pyramid, jacks and suspenders
might have raised them up gradually from one finished
course to another, till the whole were compleated. And,
however defective this my description may be, I doubt
not but it was, by some such process, this Pyramid was
built. For what wonder is it, that, men much larger and
stronger, than our workmen, should be able to work
large jacks, to this effect; when, even by common jacks,
our men can raise the front of a house, when sunk from
it's level? And if Archimedes invented the means of rais-
ing ships out of the water; why not extend the inventive
faculty, to gome of the ingenious antediluvians? And if
strength be an acquisition, in performing great exploits,
certainly they had the advantage.
The
easily contrived for suspending, at so small an height,
in each repeated effort, the stone raised by the jacks,
however ponderous and large, when suspended, might
most easily be conducted to it's bedding : and this
suspending implement may be very simple in it's
construction, nothing more than two pieces of timber,
with a head, at their junction at top, on the principle
of the head of the king post, in a trussed roof ; which
head, if made of iron, with shoulders, (as in roofs) to
receive the ends of the timbers at right angles, would
be equal to the suspending any weight, (connected to
it by a chain of sufficient strength,) that can be embraced
in the space it extends from one leg to the other.
Whereas a machine, to suspend and elevate, at the
same time, is of a complex nature, acting by pulleys
and windlasses &c : necessary indeed for raising to
greater heights, than can be reached by jacks.
Thus might these stones have been piled from
course to course, rollers and levers might have conveyed
them to the foot of the Pyramid, jacks and suspenders
might have raised them up gradually from one finished
course to another, till the whole were compleated. And,
however defective this my description may be, I doubt
not but it was, by some such process, this Pyramid was
built. For what wonder is it, that, men much larger and
stronger, than our workmen, should be able to work
large jacks, to this effect; when, even by common jacks,
our men can raise the front of a house, when sunk from
it's level? And if Archimedes invented the means of rais-
ing ships out of the water; why not extend the inventive
faculty, to gome of the ingenious antediluvians? And if
strength be an acquisition, in performing great exploits,
certainly they had the advantage.
The