as closely together as if they had been carefully smoothed for the places they occupy. They vary in thickness from 18 inches to 2 feet, and are all of extraordinary magnitude; the largest, that which closes the west end, presenting a square surface of twenty-one feet to the side. It is said, that upon digging round the monument, the walls are found to be buried nearly 9 feet in the earth, which would give the upright blocks a height of almost 16 feet. The fact is remarkable, as Celtic stones in general are seldom sunk to such a depth. But in this instance there appears to have been a necessity for it, as the blocks, instead of being vertical in the usual way, incline so far towards the centre, that a plummet dropped from the top would fall more than a foot from the base. It is impossible to visit these prodigious masses of stone without renewed astonishment at the marvellous mechanical power by which they were raised from their quarries, transported to their destination, and arranged in symmetrical order. In the vineyards, about 40 or 50 yards distant, is a solitary peulven, about 6 or 7 feet high, out of the line of the dolmen, and apparently having no connection with it; and on the top of a hill not far from the neighbouring village of Riau is a smaller dolmen, consisting of six great stones, also set towards the east, equally regular in form, but considerably dilapidated by the action of the weather. This dolmen presents the additional peculiarity of a flooring of flag stones. The blocks of which these monuments are built are composed of sandstone, found in the environs of Saumur; but at such a distance from the place selected for the mystical purposes to which the Celts applied them, that they must have been carried at least half a league over a difficult country, intersected with ravines and valleys. The work of cutting these prodigious blocks out of the quarry, and raising them from their beds, is intelligible to a people who understand the use of the wedge and the lever; but the mechanical power by which they were conveyed across rivers and hills, and placed in this regular order of walling and roofing, is utterly incomprehensible.

A glance into the dolmen of Bagneux, this vague damp

hall, fills the mind with a sort of dreary wonder not very easy to describe. What could have been the object of this rude, stony temple, mausoleum, or whatever else it was? The twilight within is by no means impressive, except in the same way, but with a sort of palpable horror in it, as a great subterranean sepulchre can be felt to be impressive. When you creep in, rather shudderingly, you have an instinctive conviction of the tremendous solidity of the masses of stone around and above you, which have stood there for centuries heaped upon centuries; yet it is of so dismal a kind, that you can hardly overcome a certain sense of terror, lest the whole mass should fall and crush you to atoms. It is probably the consciousness of your own weakness and insignificance in the presence of so ponderous a mystery that produces this feeling.

Formerly the neighbourhood of Saumur was scattered over with Celtic ruins, of which few are now remaining, and of these which are still described in the local books some have already disappeared. They have been broken up for materials to mend the roads.

The sides of this dolmen would seem from the description to resemble the sides of an Egyptian propylon, the sides of both being inclined, and both structures colossal.

Perhaps rectangular structures formed of several large stones to resemble a rectangular monolith may be found among Druidical remains.

In Gaul, the power of the Druid priesthood was so directly inimical to the Roman domination, that, as Gibbon remarks, under the specious pretext of abolishing human sacrifices, the emperors Tiberius and Claudius suppressed the dangerous power of the Druids; next the priests themselves; their gods and their altars subsisted in peaceful obscurity until the final destruction of paganism.

217

PART IV.

PYRAMID OF CHEOPS.

ITS VARIOUS MEASUREMENTS. CONTENT EQUAL THE SEMI-CIRCUMFERENCE OF EARTH. CUBE OF SIDE OF BASE EQUAL DISTANCE OF MOON. NUMBER OF STEPS. ENTRANCE. CONTENT OF CASED PYRAMID EQUAL DISTANCE OF MOON. KING'S CHAMBER.— WINGED GLOBE DENOTES THE THIRD POWER OR CUBE. THREE WINGED GLOBES THE POWER OF 3 TIMES 3, THE 9TH POWER, OR THE CUBE CUBED.-SARCOPHAGUS. CAUSEWAY. HEIGHT OF PLANE ON WHICH THE PYRAMIDS

STAND.

FIRST PYRAMIDS ERECTED BY THE SABEANS AND CONSECRATED TO RELIGION. MYTHOLOGY. AGE OF THE PYRAMID.

-ITS SUPPOSED ARCHITECT. SABÆANISM OF THE ASSYRIANS AND PERSIANS. ALL SCIENCE CENTRED IN THE HIERARCHY. —

THEY WERE FORMERLY

RE

HOW

TRADITIONS ABOUT THE PYRAMIDS.
WORSHIPPED, AND STILL CONTINUE TO BE WORSHIPPED, BY THE
CALMUCS. - WERE REGARDED AS SYMBOLS OF THE DEITY.
LATIVE MAGNITUDE OF THE SUN, MOON, AND PLANETS.
THE STEPS OF THE PYRAMID WERE MADE TO DIMINISH IN HEIGHT
FROM THE BASE TO THE APEX. DUPLICATION OF THE CUBE.
CUBE OF HYPOTHENUSE IN TERMS OF THE CUBES OF THE TWO
SIDES. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TWO CUBES. SQUARES DE-
SCRIBED ON TWO SIDES OF TRIANGLES HAVING A COMMON HYPO-
THENUSE. - PEAR-LIKE CURVE. SHIELDS OF KINGS OF EGYPT
TRACED BACK TO THE FOURTH MANETHONIC DYNASTY. EARLY
WRITING.-LIBRARIANS OF RAMSES MIAMUM, 1400 B.C.-DIVISION

HAVING made repeated attempts, and as many failures, to ascertain the magnitude of the Pyramid of Cheops from stated measurements which differed so greatly from each other, we at last abandoned all hopes of arriving at any satisfactory conclusion.

lateral; each side being 8 plethrons in length, and height the same." These statements we found to be inaccurate; for we had already ascertained the value of the plethron of Herodotus.

Savary gives the dimensions of the Great Pyramid from the following authors:

To these might be added a list more numerous, with dis

Let the sum of the indices of 4, or 1+2+3+4=10, be

By the addition of somewhat more than unity to the height,

×

23);

which may also be expressed by 1 (324 x 2-243 × 324 × 2 ); 324 being the Babylonian numbers 243 transposed.

Herodotus makes the height the same as the base :

from which take 243, or 1 stade, and there will be left 405 units for the height, which makes the height the side of the base, less 1 stade.

The cube of the side of the base6483=272097792

4 cubes 1088390065 units.

=

The distance of the moon from the earth = 60 semidiameters of the earth = 9.55 circumference, say = 9.57 circumference,

then 9.57 x 113689008=1088003806 units,

and 9.55 circumference =1085730026

Hence the distance of the moon from the earth = 4 times the cube of Cheops the cubes of the four sides.

Diameter of the earth = 7926, and circumference = 24,899 miles.

Distance of Mercury from the Sun = about 150 times the distance of the moon from the earth.

Distance of moon = 4 cubes,

... distance of Mercury = 4 x 150-600 cubes,

= 10 x 60 cubes of Cheops.

Distance of the moon 9.57 x circumference = 4 cubes, = 9.57 × 24899,

= 238283-43 miles,

... 150 × 4 = 600 cubes = 150 x 238283.43

or,, distance of Mercury = 35742514 miles.

By the tables, the distance of Mercury about 36 or 37 millions of miles. So the distance of Mercury from the sun will somewhat exceed 150 times the distance of the moon from the earth, or 600 cubes of Cheops.

The distance of the moon from the earth, by the tables,