Island, 0-5385; Pykbelady, or country cubit, 0.5773; Black cubit of Caliph, 0-5196; Royal Arab, 0.6157; Roman, 0.4434; Hebrew, 0.5541; Nilometer, or New Greek, 0·5390; Constantinople, or Cairo, 0.674; Elephanta, 0·527; Royal Babylonian, 0-5131; cubit of Herodotus, Samos, Moses, Ezekiel, Babylon, &c., 0.4618, or 17 inches. Sir Gardner Wilkinson refers to cubits from 24 to 32 digits. The Talmudists had a cubit for the proportions of the human body, 25.61; but, to the steps of the inner court, 24-74. The supposed secret cubit was 24.91. The Harris cubit of Thebes is 20.65 inches. Perring's cubit of the pyramid is 20-628 inches. Wilkinson gives one at 20.5786. The Babylonian, afterwards Jewish, has been rated at 20.886 and 20.676. In the British Museum may be seen the double cubit of Karnac, found enclosed between two stones. Though 3250 years old, the wood is not decayed. The length is 41.46 inches. Mr. Taylor declares that the cube root of the contents of the sarcophagus will give the length of the Karnac cubit. The shorter Greek cubit was only 18-24 inches. The Memphis cubit, recently found, is said by Drovetti to be 522 millemetres, or an eighth more than the ancient cubit. Jomard is of opinion that the ancient Egyptian was twice lengthened in ancient times 3 digits, and by a palm or 4 digits in modern times. Sir H. James found the Derah still in use as the cubit of Egypt, being 25 488 inches. Roubiliac Couder, on Ancient Metrology, declares that Fergusson's statement of the Jewish cubits being respectively 15, 18, and 21 inches, is contrary to Scripture.

There is a similar difficulty about the stadium. The Olympium is put at 606.9 feet. Mr. Wilson has a stadium of 281 feet from 600 Greek feet. But Mr. Fergusson says, "The Eng

lish is to the Greek or Egyptian foot as 75 is to 76 exactly." He thinks, though Herodotus gave the base at 800 feet, that "the side of the pyramid was intended to be an even number of 500 cubits." Jomard has the Egyptian foot to be 11 inches, 4 lines, 46 parts. A thousand Egyptian feet would make ten plethra. Wilson makes the Grecian foot 12.0875 inches. The stadium is calculated at 100 orgyia, one of which was supposed to be the space between outstretched hands, or 6 feet. Greaves rates the great stadium at 700 feet. The Egyptian stadium is said to be 327-27 feet. Herodotus calls the side 8 plethra; a plethron is a sixth of a stadium, There are measures evidently of 500 and 600 stadia to a degree, though Jomard regards the last as applicable to the oblique height of the pyramid.

Prof. Smyth, while highly extolling the pyramid cubit as of Divine inspiration, is very severe upon the French metric system. He condemns it on philosophical grounds, as it is based upon the proportion to a quadrant of the earth's surface, which is not so true, as he supposes, as the pyramidal, on the semi-axis principle. But he more strongly condemns it as infidel, because it was established in 1796, when the French were said, most absurdly and erroneously, to have been a nation of atheists, inasmuch as they objected to the rule of priests and kings. The French metre is 39.37 inches. Mr. Petrie compares the more simple pyramidal measure of one ten-millionth of the earth's radius with the French standard of a ten-millionth of a curved terrestrial quadrant. The standard of weight is dependent on that of measure. Prof. Smyth found that a pyramid pint weighed a pound at 68°; and that 5 pyramid cubic inches weighed a pound.

Many thoughtful persons are ready to acknowledge that in

the pyramid a standard of weights and measures can be identified, though a difference of opinion may exist as to the relative amount; but they are unable to see that the pyramid was constructed with the express view of maintaining and of exhibiting that standard.

Attention must now be drawn to the supposed direct astronomical teaching of the pyramid.

12. AN ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY.

As the Tower of Babel was in olden times believed to have been erected for the purpose of observing the heavens, so have pyramids been thought to have been raised with a similar intention. The tops, it was said, would have been admirable platforms; while the long passages, pointing, as they all did, toward the pole, would have made admirable day-telescopes.

Norden, the Dane, two centuries ago, saw one fatal objection to the theory. He remarks, "The top of the Second Pyramid, still covered with granite marble, cut so smoothly that no one can ascend it, decides absolutely that the pyramids were not built to serve as observatories." Volney, too, was shrewd enough to detect another objection; saying, "because it could not have been necessary to erect eleven observatories so near each other as the eleven pyramids of different sizes which may be seen from Djiza."

Plato's suggestion must therefore be set aside. So clever a people as the Chaldean priests would be hardly likely to build a tower on the low plain, either for safety from another Deluge or for elevation towards the skies, when they had ranges of mountains bounding their valley promising so much better sites. As to the passages of the pyramids furnishing telescopic con

veniences, that accommodation could not have lasted longer than the time necessary for the workmen to go in and out, when not only were the passages blocked up, but the very entrance was so well concealed that no tradition existed to point out the locality.

M. Jomard, when with Bonaparte in Egypt, could not help exclaiming, "It is very remarkable that the openings of pyramids are all to the north." The passage seemed fitted for an observatory, as "it formed a true tube," said he, "at the mouth of which it would be possible, I presume, to see the stars during the day." He was satisfied that " one could at the lower point see the circumpolar stars pass the meridian, and observe exactly the instant of that passage." But M. Dufeu remarked on the idea, "that could have been but a secondary destination."

Prof. Piazzi Smyth fears "that astronomers must dismiss that favourite and frequently-published notion of their own shop, from the desires of their hearts; for," adds he, "seeing that the passage was closed immediately after the building of it by a large stone portcullis, raisable only with immense difficulty, and on some few special occasions, its opportunities for observation would certainly have been far too rare to satisfy the practical needs of a working observatory."

13. ITS OWN LATITUDE.

Mr. Wild, C. E., of Zurich, said that the pyramid proclaimed the latitude of the place.

First, he found the entrance was 30 cubits above the base. His cubit is the ordinary one, about 20 inches. This indicates the latitude 30° N. Then he takes the pyramidal isosceles triangular side, and sees in 30° half the angle of the apex of a true isosceles. Afterwards, he gets another 30° from Euclid, as

L

it is half the central angle of a regular hexagon. The six angles meeting at the centre are equal to four right angles, or 360°; one sixth of that would be 60°, and the half, 30°. Regarding the hexagonal principle for the pyramid of Gizeh, he discovers the heptagonal for the temples of Thebes. The central angle of a heptagon is 51° 25′ 42′′, and the half is 25° 42′ 51′′. He places the latitude of Thebes at 25° 43'.

Prof. Smyth assures us that "the Great Pyramid is as happy in its unique situation as in its extraordinarily exact construction." At the angle of 26° 18' for the passage, he requires for the observation of the Polar star 2170 B. C. the latitude of 30°; or rather, 29° 59′ 59-2′′. Then he approximately obtains the The angle of the north air-channel is,

latitude another way.

he says, 33° 42', while that of the passage is 26° 18'; a mean between these numbers gives nearly 30°.

14. ITS OWN AGE.

In the astronomical argument, it is affirmed by Mr. Smyth and others that the fact that such a conjunction as the then Polar star and the Pleiades being seen, or to be seen, along the line of the passage, at the angle 26° 18', 2170 B.C., proves the building or finishing of the pyramid to have been at that very date.

But other singular coincidences arise to support that era. The Rev. F. R. A. Glover, M.A.. thus comments on the subject: "There is a mark of special providence within the pyramid, made 2170 B.C., which is responded to by a corresponding mark in a series of chronological passages, at the distance of 2170 inches, on a scale of an inch of space measuring a year of time;