Smyth’s detailed analyses of the pyramid’s structure convinced him that the builders had relied on a unit of measurement that was almost exactly equivalent to the modern British inch. Smyth interpreted this correspondence to be a sign that the inch itself was a holy measure, passed directly from God to Noah himself. This in turn gave Smyth the artillery he needed to attack the metric system that had begun creeping across the English Channel. The revelation of the Egyptian inch made it clear that the metric system was not just a symptom of malevolent French influence. It was also a betrayal of
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