(1.) The Coffer, though an alleged actual standard of capacity-measure, has yet been found difficult or impossible to measure.—In his first work, "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," Professor Smyth had cited the measurements of it, made and published by twenty-five different observers, several of whom had gone about the matter with great mathematical accuracy.[245] Though imagined to be a great standard of measure, yet all these twenty-five, as Professor Smyth owned, varied from each other in their accounts of this imaginary standard in "every element of length, breadth, and depth, both inside and outside." Professor Smyth has latterly measured it himself, and this twenty-sixth measurement varies again from all the preceding twenty-five. Surely a measure of capacity should be measureable. Its mensurability indeed ought to be its most unquestionable quality; but this imagined standard has proved virtually unmeasurable—in so far at least that its twenty-six different and skilled measurers all differ from each other in respect to its dimensions. Still, says Professor Smyth, "this affair of the coffer's precise size is the question of questions."
(2.) Discordance between its actual and its theoretical measure.—Professor Smyth holds that theoretically its capacity ought to be 71,250 "pyramidal" cubic inches, for that cubic size would make it the exact measure for a chaldron, or practically the vessel would then contain exactly four quarters of wheat, etc. Yet Professor Smyth himself found it some 60 cubic inches less than this; while also the measurements of Professor Greaves, one of the most accurate measurers of all, make it 250 cubic inches, and those of Dr. Whitman 14,000 below this professed standard. On the other hand, the measurements of Colonel Howard Vyse make it more than 100, those of Dr. Wilson more than 500, and those of the French academicians who accompanied the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt, about 6000 cubic inches above the theoretical size which Professor Smyth has latterly fixed on.
(3.) Its theoretical measure varied.—The actual measure of the coffer has varied in the hands of all its twenty-six measurers. But even its theoretical measure is varied also; for the size which the old coffer really ought to have as "a grand capacity standard," is, strangely enough, not a determined quantity. In his last work (1867), Professor Smyth declares, as just stated, its proper theoretical cubic capacity to be 71,250 pyramidal cubic inches. But in his first work (1864), he declared something different, for "we elect," says he, "to take 70,970·2 English cubic inches (or 70,900 pyramidal cubic inches) as the true, because the theoretically proved contents of the porphyry coffer, and therefore accept these numbers as giving the cubic size of the grand standard measure of capacity in the Great Pyramid." Again, however, Mr. Taylor, who, previously to Professor Smyth, was the great advocate of the coffer being a marvellous standard of capacity measure for all nations, ancient and modern, declares its measure to be neither of the above quantities, but 71,328 cubic inches, or a cube of the ancient cubit of Karnak.[246] A vessel cannot be a measure of capacity whose own standard theoretical size is thus declared to vary somewhat every few years by those very men who maintain that it is a standard. But whether its capacity is 71,250, or 70,970, or 71,328, it is quite equally held up by Messrs Taylor and Smyth that the Sacred Laver of the Israelites, and the Molten Sea of the Scriptures, also conform and correspond to its (yet undetermined) standard "with all conceivable practical exactness;" though the standard of capacity to which they thus conform and correspond is itself a size or standard which has not been yet fixed with any exactness. Professor Smyth, in speaking of the calculations and theoretical dimensions of this coffer—as published by Mr. Jopling, a believer in its wonderful standard character—critically and correctly observes, "Some very astonishing results were brought out in the play of arithmetical numerations."
(4.) The dilapidation of the Coffer.—Thirty years ago this stone coffer was pointed out, and indeed delineated by Mr. Perring, as "not particularly well polished," and "chipped and broken at the edges." Professor Smyth, in his late travels to Egypt, states that he found every possible line and edge of it chipped away with large chips along the top, both inside and outside, "chip upon chip, woefully spoiling the original figure; along all the corners of the upright sides too, and even along every corner of the bottom, while the upper south-eastern corner of the whole vessel is positively broken away to a depth and breadth of nearly a third of the whole." Yet this broken and damaged stone vessel is professed to be the permanent and perfect miraculous standard of capacity-measure for the world for "present and still future times;" and, according to Mr. Taylor—that it might serve this purpose, "is formed of one block of the hardest kind of material, such as porphyry or granite, in order that it might not fall into decay;" for "in this porphyry coffer we have" (writes Professor Smyth in 1864) "the very closing end and aim of the whole pyramid."
(5.) Alleged mathematical form of the Coffer erroneous.—But in regard to the coffer as an exquisite and marvellous standard of capacity to be revealed in these latter times, worse facts than these are divulged by the tables, etc., of measurements which Professor Smyth has recently published of this stone vessel or chest. His published measurements show that it is not at all a vessel, as was averred a few years ago, of pure mathematical form; for, externally, it is in length an inch greater on one side than another; in breadth half-an-inch broader at one point than at some other point; its bottom at one part is nearly a whole inch thicker than it is at some other parts; and in thickness its sides vary in some points about a quarter of an inch near the top. "But," Professor Smyth adds, "if calipered lower down, it is extremely probable that a notably different thickness would have been found there;"—though it does not appear why they were not thus calipered.[247] Further, externally, "all the sides" (says Professor Smyth) "were slightly hollow, excepting the east side;" and the "two external ends" also show some "concavity" in form. "The outside," (he avows) "of the vessel was found to be by no means so perfectly accurate as many would have expected, for the length was greater on one side than the other, and different also according to the height at which the measure was made." "The workmanship" (he elsewhere describes) "of the inside is in advance of the outside, but yet not perfect." For internally there is a convergence at the bottom towards the centre; both in length and in breadth the interior differs about half-an-inch at one point from another point; the "extreme points" (also) "of the corners of the bottom not being perfectly worked out to the intersection of the general planes of the entire sides;" and thus its cavity seems really of a form utterly unmeasurable in a correct way by mere linear measurement—the only measure yet attempted. If it were an object of the slightest moment, perhaps liquid measurements would be more successful in ascertaining at least as much of the mensuration of the lower part of the coffer as still remains.