THE 
 
 Great Pyramid of Egypt : 
 
 THE 
 HISTORIC, 
 GEOGRAPHIC, 
 SCIENTIFIC, PROPHETIC, 
 AND ESCHATOLOGIC DISCLOS- 
 URES OF THE OLDEST AND MOST 
 GIGANTIC OF ALL THE WORKS OF MAN. 
 
 
 S. H. FORD, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 Editor of ' ' Ford's Christian Repository, ' ' Author of ' ' Historic 
 Milestones," "Battle of Freedom," Etc. 
 
 No...9i.?-i-/c 
 
 V C/ 
 ST. LOUIS : ""^^^^OFWASHl^i^^ 
 
 Published at Office of Ford''s Christian Repository^ 
 
 1882. 
 
Er.tered accordirig to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, hj 
 
 S. H. FORD, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
 
'^O 14114' ^^^lEc^, 
 
 WHO HAS BEEN MY COMPANION THROUGH LONG YEARS OF 
 
 LITERARY LABOR, AND INTIMATELY ASSOCIATED 
 
 WITH ME IN ALL THE STUDIES OF 
 
 THE GREAT PYRAMID, 
 
 THIS WORK 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY 
 
 •F/ 
 
 h / 
 
 TH-E fiUTHOIl. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 AVING been for years a deeply interested 
 student of all that pertains to the Great 
 Pyramid of Gizeh — one of the seven won- 
 ders of the Ancients, and the only one of the 
 seven that remains : having had my very soul 
 lifted to a pure and lofty realm of thought, and 
 beheld fresh light and beauty play over scientific 
 facts hitherto dry or obscure, — my estimate of 
 the human race exalted, the origin of that race 
 glorified, and my whole range of mental vision 
 widened and cheered by these studies — I have, 
 by request ^from various respectable sources, 
 and by the spontaneous expression of large 
 audiences to whom I have lectured in different 
 sections, penned these pages, mainly as an in- 
 terpretation of Piazzi Smyth's great scientific 
 work, with the hope and assured feeling that 
 the same pleasure and benefit will result to the 
 reader that the endeavor has given to the 
 writer. 
 
 S. H. Ford. 
 St. Louis, June, 1882. 
 
 The numerous works quoted iu this volume , both scien^ 
 tlflc and historic — have been carefully consulted by the 
 author. ISTo labor or expense has been spared to reach 
 oritrlnal sources and recent discoveries. 
 
in^iDEx: 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE GEOGRAPHICAL AND SCIENTIFIC 
 
 POSITION AND SHAPINGS OF 
 
 THE GREAT PYRAMID 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Egypt's Place in History 9 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 Egypt's Future — The Pyramid and the North 
 Pole — E. A. Proctor's Problem of the 
 Pyramid — Whence this Wisdom '? 15 
 
 Chapter III. 
 The Physical Aspects of the Great Pyramid 
 — Its Materials— Its size and its Posi- -^ 
 tion 31 
 
 Chapter 1Y. 
 
 The Measures of the Great Pyramid — Base, 
 Side — The Days, Hours, Minutes and 
 
 Seconds in our True Year 40 
 
 Chapter Y. 
 
 The Sun's Distance from the Earth Symbol- 
 ized in the Peculiar Shaping of the Pyr- 
 amid 48 
 
 Chapter YI. 
 
 The Precessional Cycle — The Clock of the 
 Universe Symbolized in the Diagonal 
 Lines of the Pyramid 56 
 
 Chapter YII. 
 The Squaring of the Circle — The Problem 
 
 of Ages Solved in the Great ^Pyramid... 63 
 Chapter YIII. 
 What was the Great Pyramid Built for ? — 69 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE HISTORIC AND PROPHETIC APOC- 
 ALYPSE OF THE GREAT PYRAMID 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 The Entrance Forced 81 
 
 Chapteh 11. 
 
 The Descending Passage — the Dragon Star 
 
 — the Downward Drift 93 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 Sacred Time Measures — From Babel to 
 
 Sinai 101 
 
 Chapter 1Y. 
 
 From Egypt to Bethlehem Ill 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 The Grand Corridor and Gospel Era — The 
 Disrupted Rock and the Resurrection 
 
 of Jesus 117 
 
 Chapter Yi. 
 The Gospel Symbolism of the Grand Cor- 
 ridor—A Parable in Stone 133 
 
 Chapter YII. 
 
 The Historic Parables and Prophecies 142 
 
 Chapter YIII. 
 
 Eschatology — The Great Tribulation 154 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 The King's Chamber— The Stone Chest and 
 the Ark of the Covenant — The Jubilee 
 Year — Christ's Coming and Kingdom. . 162 
 
 Chapter X. 
 The Pyramid and the Pleiades 177 
 
 Chapter XI. 
 The Cap Stone and Corner Stone 183 
 
6 INDEX. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 I. 
 Measurements 189 
 
 II. 
 Have not the Measures given in this Work 
 been Contradicted % 191 
 
 III. 
 Letter from the Astronomer Eoyal for Scot- 
 land 199 
 
 lY. 
 Did the Caphtorim Build the Great Pyr- 
 amid ? 202 
 
 V. 
 Full Diagram and Indications 205 
 
 VI. 
 Dr. Phillip Schaff 's Objection 206 
 
\ 
 
 PART I. 
 
 The Geographical and Scientific 
 
 Position and Shapings of 
 
 THE Great Pyramid 
 
 .^,Mi^Z,i^ai1l l l^ ^^ i i, l ,: M Av m^a.it^ ^ ^ ^ iaS,imi^a. 
 
X, 19-20-An Altar to- "^ ^"^1^*^ '^ In the midst of Bgypt. 
 
 ''V///|\\\N^ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EGYPT'S PLACE IN HISTORY. 
 
 (Jj\ GYPT, to-day, is a miracle of fulfilled 
 JQ/ prophecy. 
 
 In the days of Abraham, it was a civilized 
 and powerful kingdom. When God delivered 
 Israel from centuries of cruel oppression, Egypt 
 was the most powerful, as the most advanced, 
 nation upon the earth. When Judea rose to her 
 zenith under the glorious reign of Solomon, an 
 alliance was made with Pharaoh as a material 
 advantage, if not an honor, to the wide-spread 
 and victorious people of Israel. Centuries be- 
 fore Troy fell or Greece rose to power, there 
 stood Memphis, on the banks of the Mle, with 
 her temples and palaces and granaries, while 
 mighty Thebes sent down on the bosom of that 
 deified river her tributes of art and wealth to 
 the Queen City of the Pharaohs. 
 
 But the crimes of Egypt invoked the curse of 
 heaven — crimes surpassing in their beastly enor- 
 mity all that was gigantic in her material grand- 
 eur. The sacred oracle pronounced her pun- 
 ishment and her doom — black as night and as 
 terrible as dark. " The burden of Egypt," broke 
 
10 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 forth the inspired Isaiah: "Behold, the Lord 
 rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into 
 E^ypt : and the idols of Egypt shall be moved 
 at His presence, and the heart of Egypt shall 
 melt in the midst of it, and the spirit of Egypt 
 shall fail in the midst thereof." * * * " ^nd 
 the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of 
 a cruel lord ; and a fierce king shall rule over 
 them, saith the Lord of Hosts." * "For thus 
 saith the Lord God : The sword of the king of 
 Babylon shall come upon thee. By the swords 
 of the mighty will I cause thy multitude to fall, 
 the terrible of the nations, all of them : and 
 they shall spoil the pomp of Egypt, and all the 
 multitude thereof shall be destroyed." f " And 
 when I shall put thee out, I will cover the 
 heaven, and make the stars thereof dark ; I will 
 cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall 
 not give her light. All the bright lights of 
 heaven will I make dark over thee, and set 
 darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord God." % 
 When these inspired men wrote, Egypt was 
 in her ancient glory, renowned in arms and 
 arts, and ruled by a despot who was adored 
 and dreaded as a god. All things pointed to 
 the perpetuity of his kingdom and the perma- 
 nency of his throne. But upon the summit of 
 
 * Izaiah 19 : 1, 4. 
 t Ezf kiel 32 : 11, 12. 
 X Ezekiel 32: 7, 8. 
 
THE GREA T P YRAMID. H 
 
 Egypt's greatness and Pharaoh's pride the 
 finger of prophecy wrote : " Thus saith the 
 Lord God ; Behold, I am against Pharaoh, 
 king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in 
 the midst of his rivers, which hath said. My river 
 is mine own, and I have made it for myself." * 
 His ruin is announced and Egypt is doomed as 
 the basest of kingdoms. 
 
 History records the literal fulfillment of these 
 predictions. We know that Oambyses defeated 
 the Egyptian army and effectually broke the 
 power of the Pharaohs at the battle of Pellu- 
 slum in the year 527 before Christ. Psammene- 
 tus, the last native king, yielded to the arms 
 of Cambyses, who strewed the land with the 
 ruins of her ancient grandeur, and Persia ruled 
 Egypt with a rod of iron through centuries. 
 
 Next came the winged leopard of Macedon. 
 At the battle of the Granicus Alexander utterly 
 defeated the proud Persian, and the world was 
 at his feet. Egypt fell into his hands. He sig- 
 nalized her subjugation by founding Alexandria 
 on the Mediterranean, at one of the mouths of 
 the Nile. At his death Egypt fell to the lot of 
 one of his generals, Ptolemy. The Greek ruled 
 it for centuries. Greek was the language of the 
 court and of philosophy. The Greek held all 
 positions of honor and trust. The ancient 
 Egyptian was treated as a foreigner in the land 
 of his fathers, and Egypt became the meanest 
 
 *Ezekiel29-. 3. 
 
12 THE GREA T P VRAM ID. 
 
 of nations. The Grecian rule continued till the 
 battle of Actium, thirty years before the Chris- 
 tian era. Cleopatra, the beautiful, licentious 
 queen of Egypt, the last of the Greek rulers, 
 became her own murderer rather than grace 
 the triumph of Augustus Caesar. Egypt then 
 passed into the hands of new masters, and was 
 made a province of the world-embracing empire. 
 Varied were its fortunes and cruel its suffering 
 during its subjugation to Eome. Zenobia, the 
 queen of Palmyra, wrested it from the Eomans 
 in the year A. D. 270. It was soon retaken and 
 the conqueress carried to Eome to follow, laden 
 with chains, the triumphal chariot of Aurelian. 
 
 At the division of the Empire, Egypt fell to 
 the Eastern Empire, and was governed by the 
 lords of Constantinople. For twelve years it 
 became the province of its old masters, the 
 Persians. Then a native Copt governed it in 
 the name of Heraclius, Emperor of Eome. In 
 attempting to make himself independent of his 
 master, he invoked the assistance of the Arabs, 
 and Omar, the successor of the Prophet, easily 
 made himself master of Egypt. Under his fero- 
 cious rule a still harder fate awaited Egypt. 
 The fanaticism of Omar — the Sword of God, as 
 he was called — impelled him to exult in the 
 destruction of that library which had been the 
 pride of the Ptolemies, and unrivalled in the 
 ancient world. Christian places of worship were 
 given to the flames ; and Christian worshipers 
 were forced beneath the uplifted scimeter to 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 13 
 
 acknowledge Mahomet as the prophet of God. 
 Conflagrations and massacres filled the cup of 
 Egyptian misery to the very brim. Egypt was 
 again given into the hands of a cruel lord, and 
 a fierce king ruled over it. Oonstantine retook 
 Alexandria, but was soon driven out by the 
 ferocious courage of the Islams, and Egypt 
 became an appendage of the Arabian Emperor, 
 whose capital was Bagdad. 
 
 Various sects and dynasties in their struggles 
 for supremacy soaked the soil with human 
 blood. Under one of these successful rivals, 
 Cairo {Bl KaMreli, the triumph of God,) was 
 founded. Anarchy, bloodshed, rival and short- 
 lived rulers, invasions, desolation, and battles 
 formed the record of almost every year, cul- 
 minating in 1010, A. D., when El Hakin ruled 
 and raved like a demon. In addition to his 
 monstrous cruelties, he made the people paj^ 
 him divine honors. Slain by his slaves, desola- 
 ting wars followed between Kegroes and Sara- 
 cens, and between both and Bagdad. Then 
 came the Crusaders, followed by pestilence, 
 while Saladin gave momentary quiet by his 
 more powerful mastery. Darker and darker 
 grew the night of Egypt. A line of slave- Sultans 
 called Mamelukes, recruited by continued im- 
 portations of Tartar captives, ruled Egypt with 
 fierce cruelty and rapine for over two hundred 
 years — under whose ignoble reign a condition 
 of degradation and vileness was reached which 
 the imagination cannot picture. 
 
14 THE GREAT PYRAMlb. 
 
 Egypt now passed into the hands of the Turks. 
 In 1798 Kapoleon invaded it. He defeated the 
 Mamelukes and subjugated Egypt. But the 
 French were expelled in 1801, and Egypt was 
 restored to the Turks. Six years afterwards the 
 Mamelukes were exterminated by a wholesale 
 barbarous massacre. The Khedive of Egypt 
 is still nominally subject to the Sultan of Con- 
 stantinople, while Egypt in faat is controlled by 
 England and France. And so, after this blood- 
 stained history of night and oppression, Egypt, 
 with her two millions of Arabs and Copts, is 
 dominated by the Egyptian Turks, who number 
 but ten thousand of her native population. 
 
 Such is the record of Egypt's dark story, 
 in veritable accord with the prediction of the 
 inspired seer : 
 
 " When the Egyptians shall fight every one against his 
 
 brother, 
 And every one against his neighbor; 
 City against city, and kingdom against kingdom. 
 And the spirit of Egypt sliall fail in the midst thereof 
 And I will destroy the counsel thereol ; 
 And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a 
 
 cruel lord ; 
 And a fierce king shall rule over them, 
 Saith the Lord of Hosts— (Isa. 19 : 2, 4.) 
 And it shall be the basest of kingdoms ; 
 Neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations." 
 
 — Ezekiel: 2g^ 75. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 EaTPT'S FUTURE. 
 
 / I \ HESE prophecies, uttered 650 or 750 years 
 I before the Christian era — when Egypt was 
 ruled by her native Pharaohs, and rose 
 in voluptuous splendor and power above the 
 nations of the earth — have been fulfilled in all 
 their black and fearful details. 
 
 And now let the closing, and as yet unfulfilled, 
 portion of that same burden of Egypt be noted. 
 A future day — a change of front—a new and 
 glorious era — is in store for that land of dark- 
 ness and oppression ; a day when " Egypt shall 
 cry unto the Lord, because of the oppressors, 
 and He shall send them a Savior and a great one, 
 and He shall deliver them. And the Lord shall 
 be known in Egypt and the Egyptian shall know 
 the Lord in that day.^' 
 
 This era has not yet dawned. Egypt is 
 still without the knowledge of the true God. 
 The crescent still rules its spiritual night. The 
 oppressor still governs its ignorant and obscure 
 people. But the fulfillment of the prediction of 
 her future deliverance and renovation is as 
 sure as the fulfillment of the prophecy of her 
 past is patent. The latter is a matter of historic 
 fact; the other is a matter of assured expect- 
 ancy. 
 
1 6 THE GREA T P YRA MID . 
 
 But before that day dawns, or at its very 
 dawning, it is declared by the unerring oracle : 
 " In that day shall there be an altar unto the 
 Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and 
 a pillar on the border thereof to the Lord. 
 And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto 
 the Lord of Hosts in the land of Egypt." * 
 
 Now, there does stand in the very midst of 
 the land of Egypt a mighty monument — ^the 
 loftiest edifice ever reared by human hands ; 
 and this towering pillar is so situated that 
 while in the midst it is on the border of the 
 land of Egypt. 
 
 The accompanying outline map of Egypt will 
 show that it is fan shaped. Professor H. Mitch- 
 ell, of the United States Survey, was sent by the 
 Government in 1868 to report upon the prog- 
 ress of the Suez Oanal. Struck with the pecu- 
 liar formation of Egypt's northern coast, he 
 sought for the central point of the successive 
 curves. With the curvature of the northern 
 coast on a good map before him, Prof. Mitchell 
 searched with variations of direction and radius 
 until he had got all the prominent coast points 
 to be evenly swept by his arc ; and then look- 
 ing to see where his center was, found it upon 
 the Great Pyramid, immediately deciding in his 
 mind "that that monument stands in a more 
 important physical relation than any other 
 building ever erected by man." 
 
 ^ Isaiah 19: 19, 20. 
 
MAP OF EGYPT. 
 
18 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 Led by no theory of the Pyramid, and with no 
 reference, if, indeed, any recollection or knowl- 
 edge of the prediction of a monumental pillar in 
 the midst and on the border of Egypt, he found 
 that this towering column stands in the midst of 
 Lower Egypt, and yet on the border of its 
 fan-shaped outline. Other smaller pyramids 
 are there. But the one " close to the northern 
 cliff of the Gizeh hill looks out with command- 
 ing gaze over the sectoral or fan-shaped land of 
 Lower Egypt — from the land^s very center of 
 origin, or as from the handle of a fan outward 
 to the far-off sea coast. All the other pyra- 
 mids are away back on the table land south 
 of the great one ; so that they lose that grand 
 view from the front or northern edge," 
 
 Egypt, as in no other land on earth, has a 
 border-point for its center. At the center (and 
 at the same time border point) rises this massive 
 superstructure from a base of thirteen acres, 
 and swelling in its symmetrical proportions to 
 484 feet high. Is this the predicted altar and 
 pillar in the midst of the land of Egypt, and on 
 the border thereof? What other spot in Egypt 
 or on earth meets the requirement of the 
 prediction % The prophecy points to the very 
 spot on which the pyramid is built. And there 
 stands the silent monitor — "a sign and a witness 
 unto the Lord in the land of Egypt.'' 
 
 Commentators have usually passed over this 
 remarkable passage with scarce a word of 
 explanation. Some have given to it a mystic or 
 
tHiE GREAT PYRAMID. lO 
 
 figurative significance. But there is the literal 
 statement : It shall he for a sign and for a wit. 
 ness unto the Lord in the land of Bgypt. It has 
 however, been recognized by recent eminent 
 commentators as indicating a material altar or 
 pillar. * Is there any example of a stone altar 
 piled for such purpose ? 
 
 Now, we read that the children of Reuben 
 and the children of Gad and the half tribe of 
 Manasseh, when they came to the borders of 
 Jordan, " built there an altar by Jordan — 
 
 A GREAT ALTAR TO SEE TO '^ — or to the vieW. 
 
 They were asked why they built this alongside 
 of the altar of the Lord ; they answered that 
 they had built it not for an altar of burnt offering 
 nor for sacrifice^ " but for fear of this thing, 
 saying, in time to come your children might 
 speak unto our children, saying. What have ye 
 to do with the Lord God of Israel?" " That it 
 may he for a witness between us, and you, and our 
 generations after us, that we might do the service 
 of the LordP 
 
 And they called the altar * Ed ' — i. e. witness 
 — "for it shall be a witness between us that 
 Jehovah he is God." f 
 
 Similar language is used by the prophet Isaiah 
 in regard to the altar and pillar in the midst 
 and yet on the borders of the land of Egypt. 
 
 * Jameson. Fiiiicett and Brown, and others. 
 t Josliua 22. 
 
20 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 It shall he for a sign and for a witness unto 
 Jehovah in the land of Egypt. 
 
 Shrouded tlirough centuries, it stood on this 
 border land looking down on the rise and fall 
 of empires, on the wreck of countless genera- 
 tions borne to oblivion on the tide of Time, 
 unmoved amid the mutations which have lev- 
 eled to the dust all cotemporaries. It has in 
 these last days been unveiled, and stands un- 
 covered as a monument for God. Like a wit- 
 ness long lost sight of and wrapt in silence, 
 it has suddenly been brought into court to give 
 forth its testimony — a witness to Jehovah in the 
 '^ Land of Egypt. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 the pyramid and the north pole — r. a. 
 proctor's problem of the pyramid — 
 whence this wisdom? 
 
 OLDIEES of France/' said IS'apoleon 
 at the battle of the Pyramids, as the 
 Turkish cavalry were thundering down 
 like a simoon from the desert upon his front ; 
 "Forty centuries are looking down upon 
 you from the summit of the pyramids." 
 And from the summit of this lofty structure 
 we can look down, or rather back, upon the 
 builders of that wonder of the ages, and mark 
 the design and the extent of their almost super- 
 human work. 
 
 Forty centuries — four thousand and sixty 
 years — have passed since it was completed. 
 Writings upon loose stones found in hollows 
 in the building, as well as astronomical calcu- 
 lations hereafter to be described, prove these 
 dates. What^kind of men must they have been 
 who projected and reared that immense pile? 
 What could have been their object or design? 
 Have the purposes for which they planned and 
 built it ever been accomplished? Is it a mes- 
 sage from the men who lived in the light of 
 earth's early morning, before hereditary decline. 
 
22 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 idolatry, and savagery debauched the race — a 
 message coming over the intervening blackness 
 of ages to these days of enlightenment, assuring 
 us that with all our discoveries, with all our 
 attainments we have not reached the heights 
 occupied by the progenitors of the race— that 
 we have sprung from a glorious ancestry, and 
 that we are not the offspring of the oyster or 
 the descendants of baboons % 
 
 The Great Pyramid of Egypt, some ten miles 
 from the Mle, stands on thirteen acres and a 
 fraction of ground — equal to four of our city 
 blocks, including streets and alleys. A rock 
 hill has been leveled, and on this foundation, 
 measured off with accuracy so as to meet the 
 mathematical proportions of the building, a 
 vast structure, with four sloping sides, has been 
 raised to the height of nearly five hundred feet 
 — the largest and the highest building ever 
 reared by human hands. 
 
 At each corner of this thirteen-acre founda- 
 tion, square holes were cut, called corner sock- 
 ets. They were first uncovered by the engi- 
 neers who accompanied Kapoleon on his expedi- 
 tion into Egypt. The wear of centuries has 
 defaced the corners of the Pyramid, but the 
 socket holes tell exactly the original corners of 
 the building. By means of these, not only have 
 the base sides of the Pyramid been measured 
 and their original length found, but it has been 
 scientifically ascertained that they laid off the 
 foundation due north, south, east and west, or, 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 23 
 
 in other words, the builders of the Pyramid 
 four thousand years ago oriented the work ; that 
 is, laid it off according to the four cardinal 
 points of the compass, in accordance with the 
 most refined principles of modern scientific 
 astronomy. 
 
 It is not generally known that to orient a 
 building, or to get the true north point, is one 
 of the most difficult things in practical science. 
 For, let it be observed that what we term 
 Polaris, or the north star, is not the true north. 
 There are a number of stars called circumpolar, 
 which never pass below the horizon, but con- 
 tinually revolve around a fixed point in the 
 heavens. Very near to this fixed point is the 
 one we call the North, or Pole star. To the 
 eye it seems stationary, but it also slowly re- 
 volves about this fixed point. [Row, the diffi- 
 culty in knowing the true north is to find the 
 central point around which these circumpolar 
 stars revolve— ^the centre of that circle around 
 which the North star travels every twenty-four 
 hours. How is this to be done 1 In addition to 
 this, there is a real, or apparent movement of 
 all tbe stars and galaxies in the universe. It is 
 called the precessional cycle. By this the cir- 
 cumpolar stars change place, or fall back fifty 
 seconds and a fraction every year. And from 
 this it results that "the same star is not the 
 Pole-star in different ages. In the course of 
 thirteen thousand years a bright star, called 
 Vega, which is now fifty-four degrees from the 
 
24 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 pole, will be less than tive degrees, and will 
 then be the Pole-star. * 
 
 How, then, with the movement of the Pole- 
 star around a central point, and this change of 
 places in the circumpolar stars, is the true north 
 point to be ascertained % 
 
 Eichard A. Proctor, the best known of living 
 descriptive astronomers, wrote an article in the 
 CoteTrfporary Review for September, 1879, in 
 which he says : " I think that if there is one 
 purpose among, probably, many which the 
 builders of the Pyramids had in their thoughts 
 which can be unmistakably inferred from the 
 Pyramids themselves, independently of all tra- 
 dition, it is the purpose of constructing edifices 
 which should enable men to observe the heav- 
 enly bodies in some way not otherwise obtain- 
 able. If the orienting of the faces of the Pyra- 
 mids had been ejffected in some such way as is 
 used in the orienting of most of our cathedrals 
 and churches — i. e., in a manner quite suffi- 
 ciently exact as tested by ordinary observation 
 — it might reasonably enough be inferred, that 
 having to erect square buildings for any pur- 
 pose whatever, men were likely enough to 
 set them four square to the cardinal points, 
 and that therefore no stress whatever can 
 be laid on this feature of the Pyramid's con- 
 struction. But when we find that the orient- 
 
 * White's Theoretical and Descriptive Astronomy, 
 p. 115. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 25 
 
 ing of the Pyramid has been effected with 
 extreme care, that in the CASE of the great 
 PYRAMID^ wMcli is the typical edifice of tliis 
 kind, the orienting bears well the closest 
 ASTRONOMICAL SCRUTINY, we cannot doubt that 
 this feature indicates an astronomical purpose as 
 surely as it indicates astronomical methods P 
 
 Such is the acknowledgment of an oracle of 
 modern astronomy. He admits the true orient- 
 ation of the great Pyramid — " bearing the closest 
 astronomical scrutiny." He acknowledges that 
 this feature indicates the use of astronomical 
 methods. What ! were these methods known 
 by the men of forty centuries ago ? They are 
 the boasted results of modern thought, im- 
 provement and research. 
 
 Professor Proctor essayed to account for 
 this orientation of the Pyramid a priori, that 
 is, by a system of guessing. He supposed that 
 it was accomplished by the shadow method — 
 just as a sun-dial marks off the shadow made by 
 the rising sunbeam. But he acknowledged that 
 in order to do this accurately, there must be a 
 perfect level surface on which the sun-shadow 
 falls. But how could a perfect level be ob- 
 tained o^er thirteen acres? He guessed that 
 water was forced from the Nile to cover the 
 area, and by this means a level obtained. But. 
 then, as the sides of the Pyramid are oriented 
 — set due north, south, east and west, all the way 
 up to the summit — the level must be found at 
 every layer of rock all the way up. How to 
 
 3 
 
26 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 get rid of all this flood of water was a ques- 
 tion. He guessed that the subterranean room 
 was excavated to receive these numerous sheets 
 of water, let oft' through what has been called 
 the well running down into this room. But the 
 writer of this showed that on the known effects 
 of hydrostatic pressure the room and the 
 whole foundation would have been shattered 
 to fragments by this method. 
 
 But even if the orientation of the Pyramid 
 was effected by the shadow method — which 
 is next to impossible — it must be remembered 
 that the first sun-dial of which there is any 
 record, and evidently the first made in historic 
 times, was erected in Eome three hundred and 
 six years before Christ. * Eighteen hundred 
 years before that discovery the Pyramid rose to 
 its immense height strictly north and south, 
 east and west — more accurately oriented than 
 any known building of this day. Whence this 
 wisdom ? 
 
 But Proctor gave up his scientific guesses, 
 and acknowledges the superior wisdom of the 
 Pyramid builders in these words : 
 
 " The position of the base seems to prove be- 
 yond all p'ossihility of question that the shadow 
 method was not the method on which sole or chief 
 reliance was placed^ though this method, must 
 have been Icnown to the builders of the Pyramid.^^ 
 
 * George F. Chambers' Descriptive Astronomy, Ox- 
 forJ, 1867. 
 
THE GREA T P YRAMID. 3 9 
 
 not know anything about the general arrange- 
 ment of earth and sea surface over the globe, 
 and that they were certainly ignorant of the 
 existence of America and Australia, of New 
 Zealand and Japan. This is all true. 
 
 They figured the earth in their hieroglyphics 
 as a flat cake of bread. They could have no 
 conception of a nether line or meridian on the 
 opposite side ofthis globe-shaped earth. ''Their 
 astronomy," says Bunsen, "was strictly provin- 
 cial, calculated only for the meridian of Egypt." 
 And says Eenan, " not a great poet, nor a great 
 artist, not a savant^ nor a philosopher, is to be 
 found in all their history." What then ? With 
 no scrap of evidence that the imbruted slave- 
 nation of the Pharaohs built the Pyramid ; with 
 no symbol or hieroglyphic of an idolatrous 
 Egyptian character upon it ; there it stands, in 
 the center of the inhabitable lands of the earth, 
 on the very spot sought for by the highest 
 science as the starting point in reckoning 
 distances around the earth, by the adoption of 
 which all confusion in day countings would be 
 avoided. There it stands, forcing on the mind 
 the conviction, that a primitive, a lofty, an 
 intellectual, a mighty race, with intuitive knowl- 
 edge, or by divine aid and guidance, reared this 
 oldest and most gigantic of all human worlcs on a 
 spot marking earth's center, as no other spot 
 does, and pointing out the tru e north as even 
 the Pole star fails to do. 
 
CHAPTER ly. 
 
 THE MEASURES OF THE GREAT PYRAMID — 
 BASE, SIDE — THE DAYS, HOURS, MINUTES 
 AND SECONDS IN OUR TRUE YEAR. 
 
 rT\ HE thirteen acres which form the founda- 
 I tion of the Pyramid were laid off in a 
 perfect square. Each side is a fraction 
 less than 761 feet, or about the sixth of a mile. 
 More accurately, according to the most recent 
 measures obtained by scientific methods, each 
 side is 9,130 inches. This is the original length 
 of the base side as measured from the corner 
 socket-holes, as dilapidations have abridged 
 the length in the building itself by several 
 feet. 
 
 These corner-holes or sockets were first un- 
 covered by the engineers or savans who accom- 
 panied E'apoleon into Egypt, in the year 1799. 
 They published an account of their discoveries 
 in a work entitled " Description d^Antiquites. " 
 After digging down through the rubbish heaped 
 up about the lower part of the building, " they 
 recognized perfectly the esplanade upon which 
 the Great Pyramid had been originally estab- 
 lished ; and discovered, happily, at the north- 
 east angle, a large hollow socket worked in the 
 
 40 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 41 
 
 rock, cut rectangularly, and uninjured, where 
 the corner-stone had been placed ; it is an 
 irregular square which is 3 metres (118 English 
 inches) broad, in one direction, and 3.52 metres 
 (137.8 inches) in another." "They made the 
 same research at the north-west angle, and 
 there also discovered a hollow socket ie^tcastre- 
 ment) similar to the former. The two were on 
 the same level. It was with much care and 
 precaution that they measured the base side. 
 They found it to be 233.747 metres," or 703.62 
 British feet. * 
 
 These corner-stones were again uncovered 
 by Ool. Howard Vyse in 1837, and again, in 1865, 
 by Acton and Inglis, of the British Ordnance 
 Survey, in the presence of Smyth, the astrono- 
 mer, and finally, in 1869, when the English Eoyal 
 Engineer Surveyors returning from the Sinai 
 Survey, were ordered to go to the Great Pyra- 
 mid for the special object of measuring its base 
 sides. The result announced by them was, that 
 the length of a side from socket to socket was 
 9,130 British inches. 
 
 Without entering upon the variations in the 
 different measurements by the French, by Col. 
 Howard Vyse, by Acton and Inglis, this last 
 result may be relied upon as the mean between 
 
 * Description d'' Antiquites, Vol. II. The original French 
 is quoted by Smyth iti his •'Inheritance in the Great 
 Pyramid," p. 24. 
 4. 
 
4-2 THE GREA T P YRAMID. 
 
 all the others, as well as being obtained by the 
 most recent and improved methods and instru- 
 ments. 
 
 But these are British inches, and it is necessary 
 to explain that this inch could not have been 
 the unit of measure of the Great Pyramid. It 
 leaves fractions in all the measurements, which 
 an inch, a fine hair-breadth longer than our 
 inch, will not leave. This longer one, by about 
 one-thousandth part of an inch, is what is called 
 the Pyramid inch. It is so visibly marked in 
 the measurements of the Pyramid, that, as we 
 proceed, it will be seen it must have been the 
 unit of measure used by the architects of the 
 building. 
 
 Now^each base side measures 9131 of those 
 pyramid inches, and this length of each side 
 was essential to the expression or solution of 
 the grandest and most important problems in 
 nature, viz. : the length of the true year, the 
 precessional cycle, the quadrature of the circle, 
 and the distance of the sun from the earth. To 
 each of these problems, expressed or solved in 
 the shapings of this vast structure, our atten- 
 tion will now be turned. 
 
 Our inch, hand-breadth, span, foot, cubit, and 
 yard, or pace, have all the human form for a 
 standard. The thumb is the standard of one 
 inch; the hand-breadth of four inches; the 
 span, eight inches ; the foot, twelve ; the elbow 
 or arm, seventeen, and the step or pace, thirty- 
 six inches. But as human feet and hands differ 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 43 
 
 in size, these are not invariable as true stand- 
 ards of measure. Now, there is a unit of meas- 
 ure: an inch stamped upon the earth^s polar 
 axis, which is one-thousandth part, or a very 
 fine hair-breadth longer than our common inch. 
 That is to say, the distance through the earth 
 from one pole to the other, called the polar axis, 
 is, according to the British Ordnance Survey, 
 five hundred millions, four hundred and twenty- 
 eight thousand, two hundred and ninety-six of 
 our inches. Beckett Dennison, in his Astrono- 
 my, gives five hundred millions five hundred 
 thousand as the length of the polar axis, as the 
 result of the most reliable modern calculations. 
 Now this would make just five hundred mil- 
 lions of those inches which were the unit of 
 measure in the plans of the Great Pyramid — an 
 inch which is one thousandth part longer than 
 the British inch. Then it is demonstrated that 
 with this pyramid inch the earth's polar diame- 
 ter measures, with no fractional remainder, 
 five hundred millions of inches. From this it 
 would appear that " God, who continually geom- 
 etrizes," as Plato said, laid off earth's central 
 line from pole to pole by the inch marked in 
 the measures of the Pyramid. At least it is cer- 
 tain that the inch or unit of measure in the Pyr- 
 amid — that which measures its various lines 
 without fractional remainders and with corre- 
 sponding adjustments — is the inch that meas- 
 ures the earth's polar diameter without a frac- 
 tional remainder. 
 
44 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 But more than this, it is found that twenty- 
 five of these earth-measuring inches (or, as they 
 are now called, pyramid inches) were the length 
 of the sacred cubit of the Hebrews — the stand- 
 ard rule given by the Lord to Moses, by which 
 to measure the Ark and the Tabernacle. 
 
 The length of the cubits of Babylon, Persia, 
 and Egypt was some five inches less than the 
 sacred cubit. We therefore read of the •' iron 
 bedstead of Og, king of Bashan," being " nine 
 cubits the length thereof, and four cubits the 
 breadth of it, after the cubit of a man." * Here 
 is the distinction marked between the cubit of 
 a man and the cubit which God gave. 
 
 In Ezekiel's vision of the Temple, we read ; 
 
 " And these are the measures of the altar 
 after the [sacred] cubits. The cubit is a [man's] 
 cubit and a hand- breadth." And again, " Behold 
 a wall on the outside of the house round about, 
 and in the man's hand a measuring reed of six 
 
 cubits, BY THE CUBIT AND A HAND-BREADTH." f 
 
 Hence it is placed beyond question that the 
 Lord's cubit differed from the " cubit of a man," 
 the sacred cubit from the profane, and that this 
 sacred cubit was a hand-breaath, or some four 
 inches, longer than the Egyptian cubit, (nearly) 
 21 of our inches. 
 
 Two hundred years ago Sir Isaac ]S"ewton, 
 in a dissertation on cubits, proved, (1) from 
 
 * Ezekiel 43 : 13. Chap. 40. 5. 
 t Deut. 3 : 11. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 45 
 
 the Talmudist's proportion of the human body ; 
 (2) from Josephus' description of the pillars of 
 the Temple ; (3) from the length of a Jewish 
 sabbath day's journey; (5) by measure of the 
 steps in the inner court of the Temple ; (6) from 
 the Ohaldaic and Hebrew proportions to the 
 cubit of Memphis, and (7) from the statement 
 by Messennus as to the length of a supposed 
 copy of the sacred cubit of the Hebrews secretly 
 preserved amongst them — tlaat the Israelites had 
 a sacred cubit long before they went down into 
 Egypt. He proved that this cubit was longer 
 by several inches than the Egyptian one, and 
 that the sacred cubit was treasured up by 
 Israel and employed for sacred purposes only. 
 The length of this cubit ]!!^ewton showed to be 
 twenty-five and seven-hundreths of our inch, 
 with a possible error on one side or the other. 
 This approximate length of the sacred cubit 
 has been determined by more recent calcula- 
 tions to be exactly twenty-five and twenty-five 
 thousandths of our inch. This is, to a fraction, 
 the twenty-five inch cubit which is in several 
 ways stamped upon the Pyramid. 
 
 There is a deep sunken niche in one of the 
 interior rooms, soon to be described, which un- 
 mistakably marks this* sacred cubit. It is not 
 in the central vertical line of the wall, but is 
 southward just the exact quantity of the sacred 
 cubit, 25.025 English inches, or 25 earth-meas- 
 uring and pyramid inches. The deep niche was 
 evidently sunk there to mark off the twenty- 
 
46 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 five inch sacred cubit — that is, fix)e times five of 
 those inches of which five hundred millions 
 measure, without a remainder, the earth's polar 
 axis. 
 
 Now going back to the accurately-measured 
 length of each side of the Pyramid's base of 
 9131 inches, and dividing this number by the 
 sacred cubit which is marked off on the wall of 
 the queen's chamber, the result is : 
 
 9131 -=- 25 rrr 365.242 + '^ 
 
 Now the length of our tropical year is 365. 
 242 + This in days and parts of a day is 
 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 49 seconds, 
 with an impracticable fraction. This result 
 agrees minutely with the symbolization of the 
 Pyramid. The days, hours, minutes and seconds 
 composing our solar year are stamped upon the 
 stony leaves of this massive and mysterious 
 book. The added lengths of the four sides of 
 the base equal 36524.2 of those same pyramid 
 inches, or at the rate of just one hundred for 
 each day and part of a day of the year. 
 
 All this could not be mere accident. It is 
 evident that the architects of the Pyramid knew 
 the length of the year and laid off its 9131 inches 
 of base-side length so that the days, hours, min- 
 utes and seconds which make up the true year 
 should be plainly symbolized in the Pyramid's 
 construction. 
 
 Now we know that the ancient nations — and 
 even the Greeks in their palmiest days of knowl- 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 47 
 
 edge — determined the length of the year by 
 the moon. Twelve lunar months, making 354 
 days, made their year. This being found to be 
 eleven days defective, eleven days had to be 
 added in order to preserve the year in constant 
 relative position to the seasons. The Egyptians, 
 who divided their year into three seasons of 
 four months each of thirty days, added five 
 days to the end of the twelfth month. Not till 
 the time of Osesar was the solar year of 365 
 days 6 hours adopted by the Eomans. But this 
 solar year, to its minutest fraction, was known 
 to the builders of the Pyramid two thousand 
 years before the adoption of the Julian calen- 
 dar. 
 
 Again may it be asked, Whence this wisdom f 
 Did it originate in the minds of the savage 
 slaves of a barbarous despot ? And if not, then 
 what kind of men were the ancestors of our 
 race? 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SUN^S DISTANCE FROM THE EARTH SYM- 
 BOLIZED IN THE PECULIAR SHAPING OF THE 
 PYRAMID. 
 
 /TV HE length of the solar year is dependent 
 1 . on the distance of the earth from the sun. 
 It is therefore a wonderful fact that in 
 addition to marking off the foundation sides of 
 the Pyramid so that it should number exactly 
 as many sacred cubits as there are days in the 
 year, the builders so shaped its four corners, 
 from base to summit, that it would symbolize 
 the earth's distance from the sun. 
 
 The Pyramid has that angle at the sides (to 
 be noticed directly) which brings out the pro- 
 portion of a diameter to the circle known as tt. 
 But it has another acuter angle at its corners. 
 Thus for every ten units which the structure 
 advances inward it rises nine of the same units 
 sunward. To have a clear conception of this, 
 let the reader imagine himself standing at one 
 of the corners of the Pyramid aaid looking up 
 to its top. The distance inward at each step 
 at this corner will be, as a necessity, greater 
 than the distance inward at the sides of the 
 building. And the slope will be less steep all the 
 way up to the top. Kow this slope is an angle of 
 
 48 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 49 
 
 41' 59^ 18.7", while the sides slope inward at 
 an angle of 51® 51' 14.3". This latter angle was 
 essential to the proportion of a diameter to the 
 circumference of a circle; the other to this 
 proportion of 10 inches inward to 9 sunward. 
 And so this 10 by 9 proportion is stamped on 
 the Pyramid's receding and ascending layers of 
 solid rock as it was also on the casing stones 
 which at first " shingled " it from pavement to 
 apex. 
 
 This nine by ten shaping of the Pyramid 
 proves that its architects understood — 
 
 Our System of Enumeration. 
 
 The very name of the Pyramid is said, by 
 Chevalier Bunsen, to mean Pyr, "division " — like 
 peres^ " divided," as interpreted by Daniel — and 
 met, "ten," that is, the division of ten. Ten and 
 its division, five, are marked all over the shap- 
 ings of the vast structure. The evidences are 
 plain on the lines of the Great Pyramid that its 
 architects knew the powers by this decimal 
 system. And how wondrous that simple sys- 
 tem is ! If it is not divinely derived, it is the 
 greatest achievement of the human intellect. 
 Do we ever think of the completeness of this 
 system of tens — how changing the position of 
 a figure increases it ten-fold — how the 3 be- 
 comes 30, and then 300, and then 3000, and on 
 to millions and trillions simply by putting the 3 
 farther along in the line of figures ? Logarithms 
 in their almost infinite calculations are based 
 
50 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 on this simple element. Was ever anything in- 
 vented by man more wonderful than this % Can 
 anything he can do or imagine surpass it % Yet 
 this was known to the builders of the Pyramid, 
 for there it is stamped upon its shapings. 
 
 Mne, the climax and the amount of our sys- 
 tem of numeration, is everywhere seen marked 
 on the Pyramid. There are four sides and five 
 corners (including the head corner), making 
 nine. There are nine thousand and a ninth 
 inches in each of its base sides. There are four 
 times nine great granite stones spanning its 
 grand gallery, while this nine by ten shaping is 
 a characteristic of the work. 
 
 Now how wonderful these nine digits ! They 
 meet all the wants of science in its vast calcu- 
 lations. They meet all the needs of commerce. 
 It is impossible to conceive of any improve- 
 ment or addition to those nine simple digits, 
 which must have been conceived and used be- 
 fore letters, or our so-called Arabian characters, 
 were used to express them. 
 
 " The idea of number," says Greenleaf, " is 
 the latest and most difficult to form. Before the 
 mind can arrive at such an abstract conception 
 it must be familiar with that process of classifi- 
 cation by which we successively ascend from 
 individuals to species, from species to genera, 
 from genera to orders. The savage is lost in 
 his attempts at numeration, and significantly 
 expresses his inability to proceed by holding up 
 his expanded fingers or pointing to the hairs of 
 
TtiE GREAT PYRAMID. 5l 
 
 Ms head." And how could savage or semi-sav- 
 age, or even highly educated men, unaided, orig- 
 inate the system which meets every requirement 
 of almost infinite calculation, and the improve- 
 ment of which cannot even be imagined? 
 
 Did the reader ever ponder the peculiar pow- 
 ers of this number nine % One only can be 
 mentioned in passing. In all its multiplication 
 nine will be found in the result. Twice 9 are 
 18, and the 8 and 1 are 9. Three times 9 are 27, 
 and the 2 and 7 are 9. It is so up to 9 times 20 
 =180, the 1 and 8 are 9. Then commencing at 21 
 the sum is 189, two 9s. Going on in this series of 
 multiplying by a system, 9 is found in the added 
 results without a remainder through all its mul- 
 tiplication. This may also be classed with acci- 
 dents ; but to any honest-thinking mind there 
 is thorough design, well-planned system in it. 
 Who originated it ? It is traced as far back as 
 primitive man, whose life was nine hundred 
 years. It is stamped on the Pyramid, the oldesi 
 as it is the most gigantic of human work. Were 
 these primitive men familiar with " the idea of 
 number — the latest and most difficult to form?" 
 Or was this idea of number God-given and be- 
 yond the powers of human invention % 
 
 But leaving this, we turn again to the fact 
 stamped on the diagonal shapings of the Pyra- 
 mid. Its corners recede inward ten units for 
 every nine which it rises sunward. Now this 
 nine by ten indicates 10^ : that is, 10 raised to 
 its ninth power, or one thousand millions, and 
 
52 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 this result, multiplied by the Pyramid^s height 
 and reduced to English miles, gives the distance 
 of the sun from the earth. 
 
 Mr. Petrie having found that the circle typi- 
 fied by the base symbolized a year, or the 
 earth's annual revolution round the sun, conclu- 
 ded that the sun's distance was represented 
 by the vertical height, and in proportion to 10^, 
 or 1,000,000,000. Mr. Petrie at once took the 10^ 
 or ten raised to its ninth power, one thousand 
 millions, and multiplied this by the height of 
 the Pyramid, 5,818.+ English inches, making 
 5,818,000,000,000 inches, and reduced this to En- 
 glish miles. The result was 91,840,000. 
 
 But the then mathematically established dis- 
 tance of the sun from the earth was ninety-five 
 millions and over. The calculations of the 
 Pyramid's 10^ came short by over three millions 
 of the real sun's distance, as settled by the 
 highest authorities in astronomy. Mr. Petrie, 
 therefore, threw away his papers and calcula- 
 tions, and would have thought no more of 
 them, but that while occupied in his professional 
 chemical engineering, he read in the scientific 
 journals, that this number as the sun's distance, 
 undisputed so long, was erroneous. 
 
 Observations had been made_, and results col- 
 lected from both hemispheres, and the newly 
 computed siin-distance given to the world. 
 One group of astronomers of several nations 
 declared the true mean sun-distance to be 
 about ninety-one and a half millions of miles. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 53 
 
 Another group of the same, and of other 
 nations, announced it to be from ninety-two 
 and a half to ninety-three millions of miles. 
 Such was the intensity of interest felt in this 
 discussion that a duel of swords was expected 
 and prepared for between two of the high- 
 est living authorities in astronomy — M. Le 
 Yerrier, and M. DeLaunay. In the midst of 
 this disputation, Mr. Petrie returned to the 
 calculations he had made years before from 
 the ten by nine shaping of the Pyramid, and 
 showed that the result from them was exactly 
 the mean between the figures insisted on by 
 the contending astronomers — and that this re- 
 sult, stamped on the Pyramid, is in itself, and 
 in all its grand simplicity and antiquity, a simple 
 representation of all the laborious and expen- 
 sive efforts to find the true sun-distance. 
 
 The expensive arrangements made by differ- 
 ent nations to observe the transit of Venus in 
 1874, and the years of untiring calculations 
 which have followed those observations, show 
 how difficult is the task to find the true distance 
 of the sun. The Greeks supposed it was ten 
 miles. They increased this to ten thousand. 
 After long centuries, advanced science again 
 increased this to two millions and a half. Then 
 Kepler showed it to be thirty-six millions. 
 Abbe LaCaille, of France, by means of trans- 
 equatorial observations, declared it to be 
 seventy-eight millions. The leaders of math- 
 ematical astronomy at the beginning of this 
 
54 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 century, after years of patience and vast 
 calculations, announced it to be a little over 
 ninety-five millions. Then came the world- 
 united effort in 1874, to ascertain the true 
 figures. Iron ships, electric telegraphs, exquisite 
 telescopes^ photographic machines of enormous 
 power, chemicals of wondrous nicety as well as 
 of deadly subtlety, refined regulator clocks, 
 and still more refined chronographs, transit 
 instruments, equatorial spectroscopes, polaris- 
 copes, altitude-azimuth circles, with every 
 modern invention that could aid, — were made 
 tributary to the grand effort to find the distance 
 of the sun from the earth. But men who had 
 studied the Pyramid declared the result was 
 there, stamped on its shapings four thousand 
 years ago. 
 
 The expensive national expeditions of 1874, 
 to observe the transit of Yenus claimed to be 
 successful. Years have passed and some of 
 the results have been given to the public : 
 
 ¥iY8t — The Astronomer Eoyal of Greenwich 
 was called on to report to the English Parlia- 
 ment the new sun-distance. He reported it as 
 ninety-three millions and some hundreds of 
 thousands of miles. 
 
 This report and its accompanying papers were 
 reviewed by the Eoyal Astronomer, at the Cape 
 of Good Hope, and found erroneous — the true 
 result being ninety-one millions and some hun- 
 dred thousands of miles. 
 
 The Greenwich astronomers then revised 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 55 
 
 their report and reduced the result to nearly 
 the same figures indicated in South Africa. 
 
 Second — A notable member in the French 
 Academy, M. Puiseux^, computed some of the 
 observations of two of the French Yenus- 
 Transit Stations, viz. : Pekin and the Island of 
 St. Paul, in the Indian Ocean. From these he 
 deduced the sun distance to be 91,840,271 miles. 
 
 Now, the 10^ of the Pyramid's shape — that 
 is 5,818+ inches, its height, multiplied by one 
 thousand millions, brings 91,840, only 270 miles 
 less than the French savant's result, and about 
 the same as the English estimate which Prof. 
 R. A. Proctor pronounces a satisfactory one. 
 
 Is not this wonderful ? When M. Puiseux's 
 computations were announced in the Paris 
 scientific journal called Les MondeSj Chanoine 
 MoignO;, the editor, accompanied it with the 
 exclamation : La Grande Pyramide a vaincu ! — 
 
 THE GREAT PYRAMID HAS CONQUERED ! 
 
 It has stamped upon it in symbols which no 
 change in language can affect, this knowledge 
 which, with all assistance of governments and 
 all the aid of astronomical and mathematical 
 instruments, the men of this day cannot attain 
 to. How did the architects of the Pyramid 
 attain to it? Could men in that early day, 
 when they were comparatively few, and con- 
 fined to a limited portion of earth's surface 
 grasp and solve these sublime problems ? Yet 
 there is the solution in that " oldest and most 
 gigantic of human works." 
 
 Whence this wisdom ? 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE PRECESSIONAL CYCLE — THE CLOCK OF 
 THE UNIVERSE SYMBOLIZED IN THE DIAGO- 
 NAL LINES OF THE PYRAMID. 
 
 WE have seen that the sacred cubit of 
 twenty-five inches is contained 36524 
 times in the base side length of the 
 Pyramid — that is, there are to a fraction the 
 number of cubits in each side that there are 
 days, hours,^minutes and seconds in our true 
 year. But there is a grander movement than 
 this observable in the heavens. It is the real 
 or apparent march of all worlds and star-galax- 
 ies along a circuit of unmeasured millions of 
 miles. It takes each star nearly twenty- six mil- 
 lions of years to complete this circuit. This 
 stellar round has been very properly termed the 
 grand chronological dial or clock of the uni- 
 verse. It is the PRECESSIONAL CYCLE. " The 
 
 appearance is as though the equinox goes forth 
 to meet the sun; and hence the phenomenon is 
 called the precet^sion of the equinoxes. The 
 scientific expression of this fact is, by saying 
 that the equinoxes retrograde on the ecliptic 
 until the line of the equinoxes makes a complete 
 revolution from east to west." * 
 
 * Olmstead's "Astronomy," p. 104. 56 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 But these scientific terms are but feebly ap- 
 prehended even by educated people. We know 
 what it is for one event to precede another. We 
 know that equinox means equal nights, or the 
 time when the days and nights are equal. We 
 know that this occurs on the 21st of March or 
 on the 22d of September — called respectively 
 the vernal and autumnal equinox. A simple 
 illustration will make it plain to all : 
 
 Suppose we go to a selected spot, say the 22d 
 of September, 1881, at 12 o'clock at night by 
 exact sun-time, and notice a star immediately 
 over our heads. We mark the spot where we 
 stand, and observe the star (not a planet, of 
 course,) so that we shall recognize it again. 
 Suppose we return to that identical spot one 
 year from that date — 22d September, 1882, at 
 the same moment by exact sun-time, and look 
 up for that same star. It is not where it was 
 one year before. It has moved eastward 
 (50.1'^) fifty and one-tenth seconds of a degree 
 Suppose we come to the same spot at the same 
 instant the next year, it will have moved on 
 an additional fifty seconds and one-tenth. The 
 following year it will have moved another 
 fifty seconds, and still om, ot?, every year fifty 
 seconds and a fraction, until it has passed down 
 the horizon and shines upon those on the oppo- 
 site side of the globe at that instant of the 22d 
 of September. And still it will move on in its 
 steady time-beat, fifty seconds and a fraction 
 
 5 
 
58 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 every year, until it has passed along the whole 
 circle of the heavens and returns to that 
 same spot where it was seen above our heads 
 the 22d of September, 1881. But twenty-five 
 thousand six hundred and twenty-seven years 
 have elapsed during that Grand Cycle, It takes 
 those centuries for each star and galaxy to com- 
 plete that stellar round in which all alike are 
 moving to a wondrous measure. This is the 
 ' precessional cycle — or precession of the equi- 
 noxes. It is the clock of eternity that beats 
 years as ours beats minutes. * 
 
 By this celestial chronometer the time can be 
 told when any star shines on a given spot and 
 when it will shine there again. 
 
 This real or apparent movement of the stars, 
 of 50'M seconds of a degree, or 22 minutes 21 
 seconds of time, makes the whole length of the 
 stellar round 25,827 years, according to the most 
 recent and careful calculations, f 
 
 * LaGrange's "Astronomy." 
 
 f The difficulty of reckoning the time of this cycle will 
 appear by noticing the following attempts to state the 
 lencrlh of this period : 
 
 By Tyeho Brahe 25,816 years 
 
 Cassini 24,800 " 
 
 Eicciolus 25,920 " 
 
 Bradley 25.740 '' 
 
 La Place..... , ...25;816 " 
 
 Bessel 25,868 " 
 
 Herschel 25,868 " 
 
 Newcomb ....25,800 " 
 
 White 25,817 " 
 
 This last quoted author is the authority in most of our 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 59 
 
 This peculiar celestial cycle, the grand chro- 
 nological dial in fact of the Great Pyramid, is 
 defined by the length of the two diagonals of 
 the base. These two lines, from the opposite 
 corners, lay out the whole portion of the struc- 
 ture. They are the two longest lines. Their 
 added lengths are 25827 pyramid inches, equal 
 to the mean result of all the varying calcula- 
 tions of the length in years of the precessional 
 cycle. 
 
 Farther still this grand time cycle is memori- 
 alized in the upper and principal room in the 
 Pyramid. The floor of this room is 1702 inches 
 above the foundation. It has been shown by 
 Professor Hamilton L. Smith, of Hobart Col- 
 lege, Kew York, that the circuit of the Pyramid 
 at the level of this room equals 25,827 pyramid 
 inches — the length in years of the great pre- 
 cessional cycle. And Proctor has found the 
 same symbolism, or as he calls it " coincidence, 
 in the outside cubits when taken instead of 
 inches." 
 
 These facts in regard to the precessional 
 cycle make it (as in fact it is) the grand chrono- 
 logical dial of the Great Pyramid. By it Sir 
 
 universities and his work is used as a text book. Recent 
 calculations make the length of the precessional period 
 nearer to the figures he gives than to those given by 
 Bessell. This difference grows out of the different meas- 
 ure of theannualprecession. White maltes it 51.2" ; Her- 
 schell 51.1". 
 
60 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 John Herschel told when a star looked down 
 the descending passage of the Pyramid, thus 
 identifying the time of its erection. By this 
 greatest of time cycles, it is also found, as 
 we shall see farther on, that the Pleiades were 
 on the meridian at midnight, in Egypt, the year 
 the Pyramid was completed. So that its sum- 
 mit pointed like an index finger to that central 
 cluster around which all the starry hosts move. 
 It will be seen from all this that those supposed 
 shepherd kings who built the mighty structure 
 in the very center of earth's habitable lands 
 and on the border and yet in the midst of the 
 land of Egyptj^knew this movement of the stars, 
 and were able to calculate, with an exactness 
 that modern science has not reached, the time 
 of the precessional cycle — 25,827 of our years. 
 Whence this wisdom f Did these primitive 
 men grasp at one bound this vast problem which 
 the last three hundred years of patient research 
 by the greatest of minds with all modern aid, 
 have only partially solved ? Were these 
 "keepers of flocks " on the borders of the 
 Lybian desert able to simplify those vast cal- 
 culations in regard to the sun's distance and the 
 precessional cycle, and stamp the results in 
 readable symbols on that oldest and most 
 gigantic of all human worTcs f Few in this day 
 of enlightenment can even follow out these cal- 
 culations. Though they are taught in our school 
 books, illustrated by engravings, explained in 
 popular lectures^ and made comparatively easy 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 61 
 
 by telescopes and instruments of wonderful in- 
 vention, yet how few can comprehend or even 
 follow their methods, or form a clear conception 
 of the grand facts ! How then could the men 
 of forty centuries ago have known them and 
 embodied them in this memorial pile % Either 
 there is proof of supernatural knowledge 
 granted to the architects, or else those men, in 
 an age of absolute scientific ignorance, pos- 
 sessed astronomical knowledge surpassing that 
 attained to in this boasted nineteenth century. 
 And just as the true sun-distance is, by the 
 very latest results of years and years of calcu- 
 lation, found to be that symbolized in the Pyr- 
 amid's shapings, so the more recent calcula- 
 tions of the precession of the equinoxes, center 
 upon the period marked by the added diagonal 
 lines of the Pyramid — 25,827 years. Again we 
 
 ask, WHENCE THIS WISDOM % 
 
 •iH^itA 
 
(eience of Circle v^ 
 
 .^ 
 
 Four sides of Square, 36524 + 
 
CHAPTEE YI. 
 
 THE SQUARING OF THE CIRCLE — THE PROBLEM 
 OF AGES SOLVED IN THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 • • / I \ HE quadrature of the circle,'^ as it is 
 I called, "consists in finding a square 
 equal in surface to a circle the radius 
 of which is known.'^ * The solution of this prob- 
 lem has interested mathematicians from the days 
 of Archimedes to the present hour. And quite 
 right that it should. It is the basis alike of 
 practical mathematics and high astronomy. In 
 Dr. Olinthus Gregory's great work entitled 
 "Mathematics for Practical Men," the uses of 
 this problem are given in fifty-four different 
 forms, showing its value in mechanical construc- 
 tions. Years since, the Eoyal Society of Lon- 
 don, and also the Academy of Science of Paris, 
 offered a prize to any one who would fully solve 
 this problem, and the fractional answer was run 
 out to the two hundredth decimal place, still 
 leaving it with an infinitesimal plus. 
 
 Now the Pyramid is just such a height, con- 
 sequent on a particular angle of slope, that this 
 height is the radius of a circle equal to the four 
 sides of the base — thus practically solving the 
 problem of the ages. 
 
 * Davies' Legendre, Book 5, Prop. 16. 63 
 
64 THE GREA T P YRAMID. 
 
 In other words, the builders of the Pyramid 
 laid off the foundation in the form of a ^'square 
 equivalent in surface to a circle the radius of 
 which was JcnownJ^ * This radius was the verti- 
 cal height of the Pyramid. The radius of such 
 a circle must he Jcnown. The Pyramid had con- 
 sequently to be built at such an angle of inclina- 
 tion that the height should be this Icnown radius. 
 " To square the circle (says Legendre) is to find 
 the circumference where the radius is given, 
 and for effecting this, it is enough to know the 
 ratio of the diameter to the circumference." 
 Kow, these progenitors of the race planned a 
 building of such peculiar shape and size that its 
 height should be the radius of a circle equal 
 exactly to the perimeter of the base. Hence, 
 they must have known, when they laid off' the 
 foundation, what must be the surface of a square 
 to be equal to such a circle as they had in mind. 
 They had then to know what the diameter of 
 such equal circle would be. They had then to 
 plan the slope of the sides so as to make the 
 height just half the dianeter of this equal circle. 
 All this must have been known before a stone 
 was laid. 
 
 Whence the knowledge ? Is it possible they 
 possessed it % 
 
 Now it has been found (first by John Taylor, 
 
 * I use the words of Davies' Legenclre in defining the 
 quadrature of a circle to show how completely the Pyra- 
 mid meets that definition. 
 
The great pyramid. 65 
 
 of London, 1855,) that both in the receding 
 courses of stones which form steps at the sides 
 of the Pyramid, and also in the casing stones 
 which originally fitted into these layers or steps, 
 the angle of slope is 51^ 51'. This angle of 
 slope from the base upwards gives such a height 
 to the structure as must necessarily result from 
 this angle of slope. It is easy, therefore, (by 
 finding where these angles of incline would 
 meet each other) to calculate what was the orig- 
 inal height of the structure. It has been de- 
 monstrated to have been originally 5813 pyramid 
 inches. 
 
 Now this height was the Icnown radius. What 
 proportion does it bear to a circle ? This is the 
 problem of the ages. Can we believe that it was 
 practically worked out and memorialized on the 
 borders of the Lybian Desert forty centuries 
 ago? 
 
 The original height of the Pyramid was 5813 
 inches. This was the known radius. Twice 
 that number, 11626, was the diameter of a circle 
 equivalent to the four sides of the base. The 
 question to be solved by the architects of the 
 Pyramid was this. What ratio does this diameter 
 bear to the square formed by the four sides of the 
 base f 
 
 Well, the four sides of the base, each one 
 9131 -f- inches, make 36524+ inches. 
 
 The diameter of the desired circle (twice the 
 vertical height of the Pyramid) 5813x2=11626. 
 
 Now, then, to ascertain what proportion this 
 
66 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 diameter haste the four sides the one is divided 
 by the other, and the almost magical number 
 is the result: 3.14159 + . 
 
 Then, for all practical purposes, the problem 
 is solved. The proportion of a diameter to a 
 circle, and the square equal to a circle, were 
 expressed in the height and four sides of the 
 Pyramid in language which can never change 
 or die while earth lasts or men live. 
 
 The architects of the Pyramid must have 
 known these proportions before they planned the 
 work. They must have determined the height 
 of the structure and the angle of slope to a mi- 
 nute fraction so as to bring out the exact height. 
 They must have known that this pre-determined 
 height would be the length of a radius which 
 would draw a circle whose circumference would 
 be equivalent to a square of certain dimensions. 
 These dimensions of the square were decided 
 on 36524. Then what must the height be ? This 
 must be exactly 5813 inches to" describe a cir- 
 cumference equal to four times the length of a 
 side of the base. What angle of slope is neces- 
 sary to this height % It is found to be of neces- 
 sity, as a geometrical problem, 51°, hV and 
 43.3". All these calculations, requiring the 
 highest culture and profound thought, are 
 worked out in the base side, the height, and the 
 angles of the Great Pyramid. But all this could 
 not have been done unless these men knew the 
 TT proportion — knew the 3.14159 ratio of a diam- 
 eter to a circle. It is certain that these primi- 
 
The GREAT PYRAMID, 67 
 
 jtive men knew this mathematical proportion in 
 a way few know it in these days of general 
 enlightenment. They knew them and worked 
 them out in this " oldest and most gigantic of 
 human work.'''' They solved the most important 
 and most difficult of problems, and impressed 
 and expressed it on that lofty pile of massive 
 rock which no change of language can affect, 
 but which can be seen and read by all men of 
 every age and tongue. Whence this wisdom f 
 
 But this is not the only expressed solution of 
 this quadrature of the circle in the plan of the 
 Pyramid. 
 
 It was discovered by Oapt. Tracy of the Brit- 
 ish Navy in 1873 that the pyramid inches in what 
 is termed the King^s Chamber (the principal 
 room in the building) stand for cubits outside 
 the Pyramid. From this the following results 
 were deduced by eminent professional mathe- 
 maticians : * 
 
 The length of the King's Chamber is 412,122 
 inches ; take this as the side of a square, find its 
 perimeter, and throw that into a circular shape. 
 The radius of such a circle will be found to be 
 the height of the Pyramid in cubits, viz : 232,520, 
 thus expressing in another way the remarkable 
 fact that the Pyramid's height is the radius of a 
 
 * Capt. William Petrie, Civil Engineer ; Capt. Tracy, 
 Royal Navy ; Prof. Hanailton Fish, Hobart College, N. Y. 5 
 H. B. Wrey, Tawstock, England. 
 
68 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 circle wMch is equal to the sum of the four 
 sides of the base. 
 
 This same feature is symbolized in another 
 form by the length of this same King's Cham- 
 ber, so that this problem of squaring the circle 
 governs the whole design and shapings of the 
 mighty structure. 
 
 ]S"ow, let any one calmly reflect on these dis- 
 closures and ask, Could it be that this knowl- 
 edge belonged to men just emerging from sav- 
 agery? Indeed it may be fairly asked. Could 
 such knowledge, such profound thought, such 
 mental grasp, such principles underlying astron- 
 omy and mechanical arts, have been possessed 
 by men however strong and mighty, of that 
 primitive age, unless communicated by eternal 
 wisdom imparted to the first man and handed 
 down along the line of those patriarchs of the 
 race, whose lives numbered centuries? Any 
 rational conclusion proves that the Biblical ac- 
 count of man's origin, and God's intercourse 
 with him, is true. 
 
CHAPTER yill. 
 
 WHAT WAS THE GREAT PYRAMID BUILT FOR ? 
 
 / I \ HE question may now be asked, For what 
 1 object was the Pyramid built? 
 
 Various theories and traditions have 
 been and still are advanced in answer to this 
 question. 
 
 Josephus, the Jewish historian, relates as an 
 historical verity that " Seth and his descendants 
 were the inventors of that peculiar wisdom 
 which is concerned with the heavenly bodies 
 and their order," "and that their knowledge 
 might not be lost they made two pillars, the one 
 of brick the other of stone, to preserve their 
 discoveries," adding, ^''Now this (pillar of stone) 
 remains to this day in the land of Siriad 
 (Egypt.)"* 
 
 The Arabians had a tradition very similar to 
 the foregoing in a manuscript written by one 
 Aou BalM/i^ (preserved in the Bodlean Library 
 in England and translated by Dr. Springer). 
 The Arabian author says : " The wise men pre- 
 vious to the flood, foreseeing an impending 
 judgment from heaven, either by a submer- 
 sion or by fire, which would destroy every 
 
 * Jewish Antiquities. ' 69 
 
70 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 living thing, built on the tops of the mountains 
 in upper Egypt many pyramids of stone in 
 order to have some refuge against the impend- 
 ing calamity. Two of those buildings ex- 
 ceeded the rest in height, being four hundred 
 cubits high and as many broad and long. 
 They were built of large blocks of stone, 
 and were so well put together that the joints 
 were scarcely perceptible. And upon the exte- 
 rior of the building every charm and wonder of 
 physics (natural science ) was inscribed." 
 
 To this another Arab writer adds, " Likewise 
 the positions of the stars and their circles, to- 
 gether with the history and chronicles of times 
 past, of that which is to come, and of every 
 future event." 
 
 Another eminent Arabian author, cotempo- 
 rary with the author of the " Arabian Nights," 
 named Ibn Abd Alkokm, gave out what he 
 claimed to be a translation from an old Egyptian 
 papyrus, that " Shedded Ben Ad, the great an- 
 tediluvian king of the earth, built the Great 
 Pyramid, and lodged within it divers celestial 
 spheres and stars and what they severally oper- 
 ate in their aspects; and the perfumes which 
 are to be used in them, and the books which 
 treat of these matters," together with "the 
 mysteries of science, astronomy, geometry and 
 physic." * 
 
 * Quoted by P. Smyth. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 71 
 
 Another of these Arabian romancers says, 
 " It was constructed by Enoch to preserve the 
 arts and sciences and other intelligence during 
 the flood." 
 
 Of course no reliance can be placed in these 
 Arabian writings. "The only fact," says Ool, 
 Howard Yyse, " which seems to be established 
 by these Eastern writers is the opening of the 
 Great Pyramid by Al Mamoun in the ninth cen- 
 tury." 
 
 Some have thought that they were built as 
 barricades against the sands of the desert 
 sweeping over the low lands of Egypt, though 
 a wall would have at once suggested itself for 
 such a purpose. 
 
 The more general theory, both anciently and 
 at present, is that the Pyramids were built for 
 royal tombs, the Great Pyramid for King Ghufa 
 — called Cheops. 
 
 This was the name of the king supposed to 
 have reigned over Egypt when the Great Pyra- 
 mid was built. But Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, 
 one of the highest authorities in Egyptology, 
 says in his Guide Book to Egypt, "It may be 
 doubted whether the body of the king was de- 
 posited in the sarcophagus ; " while M. St. John 
 does not consider the stone chest or coffer 
 found in what is called the King's Chamber a 
 sarcophagus at all, and holds that the building 
 was never meant for a tomb. The idea of the 
 Great Pyramid having been erected as a tomb 
 
72 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 for Cheops grew out of a misunderstauding of 
 the language of Herodotus. 
 
 This charming narrator visited Egypt about 
 445 B. 0. He made personal examination of the 
 outside of the Pyramid, and then wrote down 
 the statement of the Egyptian priest given to 
 him through an interpreter. It is as follows : 
 
 "Now they told me that to the reign of 
 Rhampsinitus there was a perfect distribution of 
 justice, and that all Egypt was in a high state of 
 prosperity; but that after him Cheops, coming to 
 reign over them, plunged into every kind of 
 wickedness ; for that, having shut up all the tem- 
 pleSjhe first of all forbade them to offer sacrifice, 
 and afterward he ordered all the Egyptians to 
 work for himself; some, accordingly were ap- 
 pointed to draw stones from the quarries in the 
 Arabian mountains down to the Nile, others he 
 ordered to receive the stones when transported 
 in vessels across the river, and to drag them to 
 the mountain called the Libyan ; and they 
 worked to the number of a hundred thousand 
 men at a time, each party during three months. 
 The time during which the people were thus 
 harassed by toil lasted ten years on the road 
 which they constructed, along which they drew 
 the stones, a work, in my opinion, not much less 
 than the pyramid ; for its length is five stades, 
 and its width ten orgyge, and its height where it 
 is the highest, eight orgyae ; and it is of pol- 
 ished stone, with figures carved on it: on this 
 road, then, ten years were expended, and in 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 73 
 
 forming the subterraneous a])artinents on the 
 hill, on which the Pyramids stand, which he had 
 made as a burial vault for himself, in an island, 
 formed by draining a canal from the Mle. 
 Twenty years were spent in erecting the Pyramid 
 itself: of this, which is square, each face is eight 
 plethra, and the height is the same ; it is com- 
 posed of polished stones, and jointed with the 
 greatest exactness : none of the stones are less 
 than thirty feet." * 
 
 That Plerodotus was imposed upon by this 
 priest, or misled by the interpreter, is certain, 
 as there are no stones in the building measur- 
 ing that length. 
 
 But that Ohufa (or Cheops) was not buried in 
 the Pyramid, even according to the priest's 
 statemeilt to Herodotus, is evident from the 
 words " a burial vault for Jmtiself in an idand 
 formed by draining a canal from the Nile." 
 Just such an island or locality built for a tomb, 
 and with precisely the required hydraulic condi- 
 tions, has recently been discovered one thou- 
 sand feet from the Great Pyramid. 
 
 "The structure there found, and still to be 
 seen, descended into, and measured, though 
 much defiled by the 26th and later Dynasties of 
 ancient Egypt in its decline, — is a colossally 
 large and deep burial pit, on the square and 
 level bottom of which rests an antique, rude 
 
 * Herodotus, B. 11, p 144-5, Carey's Translation, 
 
 6 
 
74 THE GREA T P YRAMID. 
 
 sarcophagus of very gigantic proportions. But 
 deep as is the pit containing it, it is surrounded 
 by a grand rectangular trench which goes down 
 deeper still, cut clearly in solid lime-stone rock 
 the whole of the way down ; and to such a 
 depth does it reach at last as to descend below 
 the level of the adjacent waters of the Mle at 
 inundation time. Then, as the waters of that 
 river necessarily percolate the hygroscopic rock 
 of the hill up to their own level, the lower 
 depths of the trench are filled with Nile water, 
 and the grand old sarcophagus of the interior 
 pit does then rest in a manner on an island sur- 
 rounded by the waters of the Nile, exactly as 
 Herodotus described ;— and it is the only known 
 tomb on the Jeezeh hill which is gifted with 
 that peculiarity or privilege." * 
 
 This explanation of the words of Herodotus 
 in regard to the place in which King Cheops 
 was buried, together with the fact that the sttone 
 chest was found lidless in a room not closed up, 
 and in which no mummy was ever found, has led 
 men who have given their lives to the study of 
 Egyptian history and monuments, to abandon 
 the theory of the Pyramid being built for a 
 tomb. M. Jomard, in his celebrated " Descrip- 
 tion de VJSgypte, '^ after having studied all the 
 features and aspects, with all the forms of old 
 tombs and pyramids before him, wrote concern- 
 
 See Piazzi Smyth's "Great Pyramid," p. 130. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 ing this great one, "Everything is mysterious. 
 I repeat it, in the construction and distribution 
 of this monument, with its passages — oblique, 
 horizontal, sharply bent, and of such different 
 dimensions. We are not at all enlightened 
 either upon the origin or the eoiployment, the 
 utility, or any motive whatever for the Grand 
 Gallery and various passages." 
 
 There are no evidences that it was built for a 
 tomb. There are no evidences worth naming 
 that any one was ever buried in it. There are 
 evidences that Cheops was buried as Herodotus 
 describes, in an artificial island circled by the 
 waters of the Nile. * For what then was the 
 Great Pyramid built % 
 
 A popular encyclopedia published by Messrs. 
 Appleton & Co. states in a somewhat confused 
 way that a mummy was found in the Great Pyr- 
 amid. There is not a shred of proof of this. 
 Col. Yyse found a mummy in Vql^ third pyramid 
 / — in the underground chamber — but nothing of 
 the kind was found in the Great Pyramid of 
 Gizeh. 
 
 "Be this as it may,'^ says Mr. Proctor, "it is 
 certain that the pyramids were constructed for 
 \j- astronomical observation." And yet only when 
 it was half finished, as this astronomer acknowl- 
 edges, could it be of any avail for astronomical 
 observation. 
 
 * Contemporary Review^ Sept., 1879. 
 
76 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 It was not a temple of worship. The massive 
 pile is solid — except those passages leading to 
 two small rooms, and these passages were 
 blocked up seemingly for a design then far in 
 the future. 
 
 It was the product of a civilization which the 
 skeptic Eenan admits had no infancy. It was 
 built in a land which, this same skeptic admits, 
 " never had a great poet, artist, savant or philos- 
 opher" — a land whose astronomy, says Brugsch 
 Bey,* "was*based on empiricism, not on that 
 mathematical science which calculates the move- 
 ments of the stars." And yet there it stands, 
 the mighty proof of the highest astronomical 
 and mathematical knowledge to which mankind 
 has ever attained. 
 
 What was it hailt for^ and who were its hnild 
 ers f 
 
 We shall be better prepared to answer after 
 we have explored its inner passages. 
 
 * History of Egypt, vo]. 1, p. 181. 
 
THE GREA T P YRA MID. 77 
 
 THE LINK THAT BINDS. 
 
 "Dwelling like greatest things alone, 
 
 Nearest to Heaven of earthly buildings, thou 
 
 Dost lift thine ancient brow 
 
 In all the grandeur of immortal stone, 
 
 And, like the Centuries' beacon, stand, 
 
 Up-springing as a tongue of fire 
 
 To light the course of Time through Egypt's mystic land. 
 
 ' Tis not for poets to inquire 
 
 Why thou wast built and When ? 
 
 Whether, in monumental state, 
 
 So great thyself to tomb the great 
 
 Beyond their fellow-men ? 
 
 Or dost thou, in thy bodily magnitude, 
 
 Not uninformed nor rude, 
 
 Declare the abstract ties which Science finds, 
 
 Seen by the light of geometric minds. 
 
 On fixed proportions, each allied to each ? 
 
 Or dost thou still, in inferential speech. 
 
 Reveal unto mankind the girth 
 
 Of the vastly rounded earth ; 
 
 And to the busy human race 
 
 Bequeath a rule, to guide the range 
 
 Of all the minor measurements of Space, 
 
 Which Traffic gets, and gives, in endless interchange. 
 
 Enduring pile ! Thou art the link that binds 
 
 The memory of reflective minds — 
 
 Vast mass of monumental rock sublime. 
 
 That to the present Age dost join the Youth of Time." 
 
PART II 
 
 The Historic and Prophetic 
 
 Apocalypse 
 
 Of the Great Pyramid. 
 
 JHi^iL^^luM^^^isA-M^:!.j^a^k 
 
 ijiltd>^'^ 
 
 i.>N)iii»X.:: 
 
 ia^iiK^ii.,i^iii^ 
 
 LikBUuMlilMijttiKL^ 
 
PART 11. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ENTRANCE FORCED. 
 
 ND there stood the gio^antic pile with 
 
 unrecorded date, looking down upon the 
 
 ruins of all contem])orary monuments, 
 
 steadfast upon its rocky hill— itself a mountain 
 
 of stone, with all its avenues closed — the wonder 
 
 and the mystery of the ages. 
 
 Abraham had gazed upon it in all its pristine 
 glory. It was known to the patriarchs and to 
 the children of Israel. Centuries swej)t by it. 
 The storms of ages beat against it, and mighty 
 armies battled for universal empire about its 
 base. Herodotus, the first to write human 
 history, gazed with amazement on its vast 
 dimensions and lofty height. Strabo, the 
 Grecian philosopher, beheld its polished sides 
 when the casing stones made them a mirror 
 that flung back the sun^s radiance on the green 
 fields of Egypt — beheld in wrapt awe, declaring 
 
 " IT WAS NOT ERECTED BY MAN'S TOIL, BUT 
 DESCENDED UPON ITS SITE READY FORMED 
 
 FROM HEAVEN." 
 
 81 
 
82 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 Tiirougii all the ages this witness, from ike 
 dead past to the living present, was silent — 
 made no sign that men could interpret. 
 
 The ages moved slowly by. The sand storms 
 swept around its rocky base. Generations 
 after generations rose and gazed and passed 
 away. The Greek and the Eoman and the 
 Arab claimed, in turn, to be its owner. It out- 
 lived them all, and held its secret until the ful- 
 ness of its time had come. 
 
 At length in the year of our Lord 825, Al 
 Mamoun, a successor of Mahomet, head of 
 the Arabian Empire when it had touched the 
 zenith of its glory, resolved to drag forth the 
 Pyramid^s secrets or its treasures into the light. 
 
 He had been told by the romancers and for- 
 tune tellers of Bl Fostat — the old Cairo — that 
 gold and gems and untold wealth of antedi- 
 luvian kings were stored in its hidden depths. 
 Secrets too — magic charms, and the wisdom of 
 the golden ages — were treasured in its vast 
 vaults. 
 
 Al Mamoun set about the task with the en- 
 thusiasm of a fanatic and the cupidity of an am- 
 bitious ruler. Relays of workmen inspired by 
 the promises of rich rewards, began to dig into 
 the north side of the Pyramid, just about the 
 same distance from the northeast corner that 
 the real but hidden entrance was, but some 
 forty feet below this. The workmen toiled day 
 and night, week after week even into months, 
 breaking into the solid stone work and blasting 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID, 83 
 
 iu tlie best way ^ey knew how in that age. 
 Weeks and even months of constant toil gave 
 thein no encouragement of piercing the sup- 
 posed interior hollow where the vast treasures 
 were stored. One hundred feet had been 
 blasted or bored into the stone work, as hard 
 and unyielding as the rocky hillside. 
 
 Murmurs arose among the workmen. The 
 command was to dig on. The murmurs of the 
 weary workmen were about to break forth in 
 open refusal and revolt, when an incident oc- 
 curred of a significant character. The sound 
 of a falling stone revealed a hollow spot next 
 to them. It was announced by the workmen 
 with a shout of cheer. The labors became 
 more hearty. Blows fell quick and heavy, and 
 soon they burst into a " dark hollow place." It 
 was the descending passage seen in the accom- 
 panying engraving. It begins fifty feet above 
 the ground, and twenty-four feet east of the 
 center of the northern face of the Pyramid. 
 The Arabs cautiously entered it. They moved 
 up its smooth floor to the entrance, which was 
 filled up either with the original plugs or with 
 broken pieces of the casing stones. Driving- 
 out the rock that hid up the mouth of this en- 
 trance passage, the sunlight swept down to 
 where the sound of the falling stone had been 
 heard. This was a large stone which fitted into 
 the ceiltng with angular shaping, while the face 
 side was smooth and polished and not to be 
 distinguished from the other stones of which 
 
84 
 
 THE GREA7 PYRAMID. 
 
 
 '1)1;— X>A.).fyiiiil! ''■^' 
 
 FRONT ELEVATrON. J&^Z^iTz^ iV7?i^t. 
 
 OF, THE ftNGLE STONES and PRESENTtr PUAPIDATEO MASONRY. 
 RVER.THE OHEAHD SOLE ORICINAUENTRA-NCE PASSAGE INTO THE SAEAT PYRAMID. 
 
 _2r^m. a. "photograph':^ P;s'/ 
 
 the ceiling was composed. It liad been there, 
 undisturbed since the Pyramid was built. 
 Even if (as is supposed) the descending passage 
 had been entered by its proper mouth or open- 
 ing in past ages and then this mouth closed up, 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. ^^ 
 
 this stone had never been removed until it was 
 shaken from its position by the blows of Arab 
 hammers. 
 
 And now the secret was laid bare. Behind 
 this displaced stone was the evidence of an- 
 other passage, beginning in the ceiling of this 
 descending one, which slants down over three 
 hundred feet, ending in a vault, or chamber, 
 which is directly under the Pyramid, a hundred 
 feet down in the solid rock. 
 
 But the fall of the stone in the ceiling of this 
 descending passage revealed another passage. 
 But its mouth was stopped up with great gran- 
 ite plugs wedged in by the pressure of the 
 stones above, and of such hard material that it 
 was impossible either to shatter or move them. 
 They are there yet. When visiting the Pyra- 
 mid, one has to climb round or over them 
 through an opening cut in the softer limestone 
 that surrounds these granite wedges which jam 
 up the entrance to this upward passage. Dig- 
 ging their way, the Arabs found the passage, 
 back of the barred entrance, filled up with 
 blocks of limestone. Shattering these with 
 their hammers and lifting them out, others 
 would slide down — another and another — the 
 whole passage, four feet high and three feet 
 wide, filled with blocks of stone nearly as high 
 as the passage itself. Desperate and continued 
 efforts at length removed the last stone. The 
 way was now cleared. The Arabs leaped into 
 this passage, lit up by their glaring torches. 
 
S6 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 '''' Alia Acbar V was shouted aloud, — the first 
 sounds and the first foot-falls within those mys- 
 terious chambers for three thousand years. All 
 had been blocked up, sealed, hidden from hu- 
 man curiosity since the completion of the mas- 
 sive pile. These stones must have been placed 
 both in the opening of this ascending passage 
 and all up its way when that part of the Pyramid 
 was built. It is impossible that these granite 
 plugs wedged into the lower end of this pass- 
 age, or the loose stones that filled it all the way 
 up, could have been put there after the Pyramid 
 was comj)leted. 
 
 But the way clear, the Arabs, wild with joy, 
 rushed up with bent forms along this four-foot 
 high passage. It soon opened into another one 
 seven times its height, and six feet broad. It was 
 a noble room, with polished marble sides and 
 floor, equal to the finest cabinet work in joint- 
 ings and finish. Ttiirty-six great granite blocks 
 span the roof, and seven courses of over-lapping 
 marble slabs form its shining walls. Upright 
 stones bank the sides near the floor, like our 
 wash-boards, in which are found twenty- eigbt 
 holes at equal distances from each other and 
 above each other. In each of these holes, ex- 
 cept the two near the north end and the one in 
 the stone step at the extreme south end, there 
 is set in the wall a vertical stone thirteen inches 
 broad and eighteen high. 
 
 The Arabs paused, awe-struck, within this 
 lofty, solemn and mysterious corridor. Their 
 
THE GREA T P YRAMID. 
 
 torches could not light up its granite-spanned 
 roof, which appeared twice its real height. 
 Here they expected to find the earnestly-sought 
 treasure, but all was empty, and devoid of any 
 sign or hieroglyphic. 
 
 The first entry by the Arabs in ihe year 825. 
 
 On ! on ! '-^Alla Achar! " rang out and echoed 
 and re-echoed throughout the length of this 
 wonderful passage. And upward rushed the 
 almost frantic Arabs until they encountered a 
 step, climbing up which they pressed on until 
 
88 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 met by an impending wall, which suddenly comes 
 down at the south end of the passage and which 
 leaves a narrow one beyond it through which 
 they groped with bended posture uutil they 
 reached an ante-room, in which is a "granite 
 leaf," as it has been called, and a peculiar 
 protuberance known as tlie granite "boss." 
 From this they make their way through another 
 low passage overhung by a kind of portcullis — 
 a great granite block resting in grooves, and 
 then with a bound and a shout they stand in a 
 beautiful room now called the King's Chamber, 
 and gaze about them in wonder and disappoint- 
 ment, for this splendid granite room, with its 
 sides polished like the finest jewelry, is empty 
 — treasureless — nothing in it but a great granite 
 chest, hollowed out from a solid rock — lidless, 
 empty, and without a mark or hieroglyphic. 
 
 Ko mummy nor sign of mummy is found in 
 this so-called " sarcophagus," not an inscription 
 on its sides. IsTot an idolatrous emblem or sym- 
 bol is traced on the walls of the noble chamber 
 where it rests. Air channels ventilate the room. 
 The immediate entrance to it is oi)en. The 
 granite chest, or coffer, is not built round or 
 closed in. Nothing suggests a cof&n, or tomb. 
 Ko treasures were found in this " sanctuary," 
 for which seemingly the whole mighty fabric 
 was reared. All is silence, emptiness, mystery. 
 ""Alia AcbarP^ again shout the disappointed 
 Arabs, whose work is done, and whose hopes 
 are quenched. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 89 
 
 Oue great fact in regard to the room and its 
 contents is notable. This stone chest or coffer 
 is the size of the ark or chest which God com- 
 manded Moses to make and place in it the tab- 
 lets of the law, the pot of manna, and Aaron's 
 rod that budded — the ark of the covenant, bear- 
 ing which on their shoulders the priests entered 
 the swollen Jordan and i1 s waters divided 30 that 
 Israel might pass over dry-shod — the ark, above 
 which was the mercy-seat and the cherubim and 
 the glory of the Shekinah — the ark which typi- 
 fied the Lord Christ. The stone chest or " cof- 
 fer" found by these intruders into those here- 
 tofore sacred and secret chambers was of the 
 dimensions of the Ark of the Loed, as will 
 be fully shown farther on. 
 
 But to return. The Arabs on entering the long 
 corridor twenty-eight feet high and six feet wide 
 had passed a passage the height of the one that 
 led to it — only four feet. It was horizontal and 
 conducted to a room now called the " Queen's 
 Chamber." This they explored and found en- 
 tirely empty — with that peculiar niche sunk in 
 the wall showing the sacred cubit, which has 
 already been described. Near the entrance to 
 this horizontal passage is a chasm caused by 
 the absence in this place (or by the tearing 
 away) of one of the bank stones which stand in 
 ranks all up the long corridor. From this hole 
 or chasm a deep channel runs down, ragged and 
 indirect, one hundred and forty feet and meets 
 7 
 
90 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 the descending entrance-passage very near the 
 subterranean vault. 
 
 And now the inmost and hitherto secret cham- 
 bers of this mysterious mountain of stone had 
 been pierced. All was black as night — empty, 
 unlettered, unmeaning. Al Mamoun and his 
 viziers and soldiers stood thunderstruck. 
 
 Murmurs were again heard. The Com- 
 mander of the Faithful was endangered. He 
 met the doubts and demoralization of his faith- 
 ful followers by burying a certain amount of 
 gold in some part of the Pyramid. The next 
 day he ordered his soldiers to dig at this very 
 spot. They immediately came to the treasure. 
 " Let it be counted ! " was the caliph's order. 
 It was carefully counted when " Lo ! it amount- 
 ed to the exact sum that had been spent in 
 the undertaking — neither more nor less. The 
 caliph was astonished and said he could not un- 
 derstand how the kings of the Pyramid could 
 know exactly how much money he would have 
 to expend in work, and he was lost in suprise." 
 
 The Arabian poets celebrated his achievement 
 and embellished the story with fables. They 
 gave out that the coffer or stone chest was full 
 of gold, and that a dead man with a breast plate 
 of gold was found in it ; all of which are to 
 be classed with the tales of the " Arabian 
 Mghts." 
 
 But the interior of this " wonder of the ages " 
 was now open for the first time to all men. 
 
 And "men did occasionally enter it," says 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 91 
 
 one of the most reliable historians of the period, 
 " for many years, and descended by the slippery 
 passage which is in it." 
 
 But it remained still as barren and meaning- 
 less as the desert on whose border it stood. 
 For centuries it was voiceless. 
 
 At length in 1637 Professor John Greaves 
 visited the Great Pyramid with a view to study 
 its astronomical bearings and proportions. He 
 was a professor of astronomy in Oxford Uni- 
 versity. He measured the passages and cham- 
 bers—but gave more attention to the outside 
 than to the interior. In his published account 
 of his visit and his explorations he pointed out 
 " that Diodorus hath left, above 1,600 years 
 since, a memorable passage concerning Ohem- 
 mis (Cheops) the builder of the Great Pyramid, 
 and Cephren (Shafre) the royal founder of the 
 work adjoining. 'Although saith he (Diodorus) 
 those kings intended these for their sepulchres, 
 yet it happened that neither of them was buried 
 there.^ " * 
 
 Nearly two hundred years after this work of 
 the old Oxford professor it was again taken up 
 by the engineers and savants of Napoleon. 
 Then came Ool. Yyse in 1837, expending his 
 time and his fortune in exploration and admeas- 
 urements. The general mind was to a great ex- 
 
 * Greaves, quoted by P. Smyth, " Our Inheritance " 
 p. 129. 
 
.92 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 tent awakened by his researches. The attention 
 of Sir John Herschel was directed to this mem- 
 oriai of lost science, and finally John Taylor, of 
 London, wrote a work entitled " Y^hy was the 
 Pyramid Built and Who Built It f '' 
 
 He showed that the shape, the arrangements 
 and other indications of the Great Pyramid 
 proved that its architects possessed profound 
 knowledge of the heavens and of the earth, 
 which Egypt never possessed or even under- 
 stood, nor any other nation, until a thousand 
 years ago. This work by Taylor arrested the 
 attention of one of the greatest men of this age 
 — Piazzi Smyth, Eoyal astronomer for Scotland. 
 He resolved, at his own expense to visit the 
 Pyramid. He took with him twenty- seven 
 boxes of instruments by which to make the 
 most accurate observations and measure- 
 ments. He was assisted by the Egyptian 
 of&cials — with two ries or captains and twenty 
 men from Sakkara to aid in clearing the Pyra- 
 mid passages and removing obstructions. He 
 measured and re-measured the interior passages 
 and chambers (to which we now direct attention) 
 with the most perfect mathematical instru- 
 ments. He gave the results to the world in a 
 splendid volume of nearly 700 pages — results 
 which have never been impeached. From 
 these we now proceed to show the sacred 
 symbolisms of the Great Pyramid. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DESCENDING PASSAGE — THE DKAGON 
 STAR— THE DOWNWARD DRIFT. 
 
 IT will be seen by looking at the chart of the 
 Great Pyramid, that a long slant passage 
 enters the north side of the structure and 
 descends into an angular shaped room one 
 hundred feet down in the solid rock. The 
 ceiling of the subterranean room is "exquisitely 
 smooth." But, as must be presumed, when the 
 original workers had cut downwards from the 
 ceiling to a depth of about four feet to the west 
 and thirteen feet to the east they stopped. 
 
 93 
 
04 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 They then bored a hole in the south end and 
 left it unfinished. Then a portion of the bot- 
 tom was excavated deeper than the other part, 
 and this was also left incomplete. So that the 
 lower part of this room was left in holes and 
 hollows, and on this account has been called 
 " bottomless." 
 
 The downward passage to this floorless or 
 " bottomless '^ underground chamber is 4,404 
 inches* and is about four feet high and nearly 
 as wide. 
 
 This passage is directed to a point in the 
 northern sky 3 ® 42' below the pole. It will be 
 remembered that the Great Pyramid itself is as- 
 tronomically oriented — its sides point due north, 
 south, east, and west. But while |lie side of 
 the structure in which this long descending 
 passage is, points to the pole of the sky, the 
 descending passage points to a spot three 
 degrees and a fraction below it. Why was this f 
 
 Col. Howard Yyse, concluding that this down- 
 tunnel was built with some astronomical design, 
 submitted to Sir John Herschel the question : 
 " When did a star shine down that passage, and 
 what was the star f " 
 
 Looking up that long passage into the 
 northern sky a star is seen. It is our present 
 pole star in the constellation of the Little Bear. 
 But that star was not always there. It, like all 
 
 * According to the measurements of Col. Yyse. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 95 
 
 THE DOWNWARD DRIFT. 
 
96 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 the other stars and galaxies, moves on in that 
 grand celestial round called the precession of the 
 equinoxes. IsTow by this " dial of the heavens," 
 the location of any star at any period can be 
 found. Sir John Herschel found that the star 
 Alpha Draconis, when passing below the pole 
 was 3 ^ 42' from the pole of the heavens 
 about 2,170 years before Christ.* 
 
 Kow here is 2^ fact in the construction of the 
 Pyramid which, unless symbolical, is meaning- 
 less. An underground floorless or bottomless 
 pit, unfinished and unfit for any earthly prac- 
 tical purpose ; a slanting passage-way leading 
 to this subterranean chamber so built that along 
 its whole descent the dragon star looked — 
 built, too, not to point to the true north, but to 
 this particular star when passing below the pole 
 of the heavens. What could more clearly 
 symbolize the terrible facts in human history 
 or human destiny ! The progress of humanity, 
 in all that is God-like, has been downward, ever 
 downward. Every age and every people record 
 this downward drift — the Descensus A verni. 
 Boast as we may of the civilization and advance- 
 ment of the race, the stern facts meet us all 
 along the dark and crimsoned march of human- 
 
 * Professor Proctor, while trying to overthrow the 
 scientitic theory of the Great Pyramid says : " Sir John 
 Herschel's correct statement that about the ye;)r 2170 B. 
 0. the star Alpha Draconis was about 3 '^ 42' from the 
 pole." — Contemporary Review. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 97 
 
 ity, that in all that bears upon the eternal world, 
 in all that relates to the claims of God over 
 mind and conscience, in all that belongs to true 
 morality, man's way has been downward from 
 the very beginning. 
 
 There is nothing more solidly established by 
 science than that the earliest traditions taught 
 this downward drift. According to the Egyp- 
 tians the terrestial reign of Ra was the age of 
 gold. This belief of an age of innocence and 
 bliss by which the career of humanity be- 
 gan is also to be met with among all peoples 
 of Aryan or Japhetic race. The laws of Manu 
 divide the duration of the human race into four 
 ages : the age of perfection {Kritayuga) ; the 
 age of three-fold sacrifice or the accomplish- 
 ment of all religious duties ( Tretunga ) ; the 
 age of doubt or obscuration of religious notions 
 {Dvaparayuga) ; the age of perdition or {Kali- 
 yuga) the present age which is to close in the 
 destruction of the world. * 
 
 Zoroastrian Mazdeism teaches the same 
 theory. Time is divided into four ages. The 
 first is all pure, like Eden. The good God 
 Ahuramazda reigns over his creation in which, 
 as yet, no evil has appeared. In the second 
 age the evil spirit Angromainyus issues from 
 the darkness. At first the evil spirit has com- 
 
 * Franc ois Lenormant, in Conteniporary Review, Sept, 1, 
 1870. 
 
98 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 paratively little power. Finally during historic 
 times lie prevails, but his defeat is accomplished 
 and the evil of this last age is to be followed by 
 the resurrection of the dead and the beatitude 
 of the risen just.* The laws of Manu say 
 with this decline in religion and morality there 
 is a steady decrease in the length of human 
 life — in the proportion of 4, 3, 2, 1. And then 
 the evil spirit is represented as the serpent, 
 the dragon, who is the god of this world. 
 
 The inspired record of the fall through the 
 promptings of the old serpent is echoed in the 
 scriptures of Zoroastrianism in these words: 
 "I created the first and best of dwelling places 
 ( Eden ). I who am Ahuramazda ; the Airyana 
 Vsedja is of excellent nature. But against it 
 Angromainyus, the murderer, created a thing 
 inimical, the serpent out of the river and the 
 winter, the work of the Doevas ( demons.) " * 
 
 This scourge caused by the power of the ser- 
 pent drives men out of the best of dwelling 
 places. 
 
 These quotations are introduced to show that 
 before the written word, before the inspired 
 record of man^s fall and downward drift, Die 
 facts were recorded in human memory and sym- 
 bolized in these myths. 
 
 * Theopompus, cited by the author of the "Treatise on 
 Isis and Osiris." (Plutarch, C. 47). 
 t " Yesht," 19- " Bundehesh," 23. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 99 
 
 A cylinder of hard stone is preserved in the 
 British Museum dug up from ruins in Assyria 
 and of great antiquity, on which are seen the out- 
 lines of a man and a woman seated opposite 
 each other on either side of a tree from whose 
 spreading branches two big fruits hang, one in 
 front of each of the figures, who are stretching 
 out their hands to gather it. A serpent is rear- 
 ing himself up behind the woman. * 
 
 "The existence of this tradition," says the 
 author already quoted, '' in the cycle of the indig- 
 enous legends of the Canaanites, seems to me 
 placed beyond doubt, by a curious painted vase 
 of Phenician workmanship of the seventh or 
 sixth century before Christ, discovered by Gen- 
 eral di Oesnola in one of the most ancient sep- 
 ulchres of Idalia, in the Isle of Cyprus. There 
 we see a leafy tree, from the branches of which 
 hang two large clusters of fruit, while a great 
 serpent is advancing with undulating move- 
 ments towards the tree and rearing itself to 
 seize hold of the fruit." 
 
 And so the sacred books of Ancient India, 
 like the poetry of Hesiod, show that it was by 
 the law of decadence and deterioration that the 
 ancient world believed itself so heavily laden. 
 " In proportion as time passed and things de- 
 parted further and further from their point of 
 emanation, they corrupt themselves and grow 
 worse and worse." 
 
 * Lenormaiit, C. R., p. 54. 
 
100 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 Now, these traditions or beliefs, originating 
 in the facts recorded in the Bible, and seen in 
 an " evolution of decline " towards idolatry and 
 barbarism, savagery and beastly degradation, 
 could not be more clearly and strikingly sym- 
 bolized in stone than they are in this downward 
 passage along which the light of the dragon 
 star gleamed, and which ended in the deep, 
 dark, floorless pit. 
 
 The existence of an evil principle, of a per- 
 sonal and powerful agency controlling the race 
 in this decadence, is embraced in universal tra- 
 dition, is felt in universal experience, and is the 
 only solution of the problem of evil. But the 
 existence of this evil one is taught in God's 
 inspired word. He is called the " Prince of the 
 power of the air," ''the spirit that now worketh 
 in the children of disobedience." He is called 
 "the God of this world," and "the world lieth 
 in the wicked one." He is called "the Drag- 
 on," "the old serpent," and is declared to be a 
 tempter, liar, murderer, destroyer, to whose 
 usurped power men slavishly yield. Under his 
 influence it is declared " evil men shall wax 
 worse and worse." And that "as in the days of 
 Noah, and in the days of Lot, so shall it be at 
 the end of this age — in the days of the Son of 
 Man." Then, and not till then, shall this dragon 
 power " fall like lightning from the heavens and 
 be given to the burning flame.'' 
 
OHAPTEE III. 
 
 SACRED TIME MEASURES — FROM BABEL TO 
 
 SINAI. 
 
 } I \HIS downward passage, as has been de- 
 1 scribed in the foregoing chapter, is met 
 by another one running in the same south- 
 ward direction, but upwards. It strikes the 
 ceiling of the downward one, and is walled up 
 with hard stone wedges, and was found filled up 
 with large, loose stones. As the explorer goes 
 down the slippery floor of the downward way, 
 he notices these wedges are placed in the origi- 
 nal entrance to this other and upward way. 
 The Arabs, as already stated, cut away the softer 
 side stones so as to get round and above these 
 plugs. It is still reached by climbing up this 
 "cut-off." 
 
 By the measurements of Col. Vyse, * and the 
 still more accurate measurements of Professor 
 Smyth, it is found that the beginning of this 
 ascending passage is 988 inches from the mouth 
 of the long descending passage, and leads into 
 a still higher and longer one. 
 
 * The author has carefully examined and compared 
 Howard Vyse's measurements with those of the Astrono- 
 mer Royal. 
 
 101 
 
102 THE GREAT PYRAMID, 
 
 The question has been asked, "Why this 
 seeming change in the plan of the Pyramid? 
 Why this sudden turn in the entrance passage ? 
 Why this difference in the interior from all the 
 lesser and later pyramids % The main descend- 
 ing passage was planned with astronomical pre- 
 cision. It was leveled at the Dragon star. It 
 entered the subterranean room a hundred feet 
 directly under the Pyramid. What use was 
 there for any other passages? Was the first 
 plan abandoned and the lower room left unfin- 
 ished, and this other passage built in the struc- 
 ture to lead to chambers better suited to the 
 object of the builders than the subterranean 
 vault could be % 
 
 These questions have been answered in the 
 affirmative by rationalistic Egyptologists, but 
 without a particle of proof. 
 
 Dr. S. Birch, in a learned work on the " Dis- 
 coveries in Egypt," conjectures why these sup- 
 posed alterations were made. By comparing 
 his language with the account obtained from the 
 Egyptian priest through an interpreter, and re- 
 corded by Herodotus, it will be seen that Dr. 
 Birch has no information to impart except what 
 we have already quoted from Plerodotus. After 
 giving in substance what is related by that au- 
 thor, he guesses why the lower vault was aban- 
 doned, and this ascending passage made to lead 
 into the interior chambers. 
 
 The following is Dr. Birch's language : 
 
 "It is by far the most remarkable of all the 
 
THE GREA T P Y RAM ID. 103 
 
 pyramids, for several changes appear to have 
 taken place during its construction. The first 
 or nobler chamber appears to have been aban- 
 doned in consequence of the prolongation of 
 the passage extending beyond the base, the 
 Pyramid having continued to be built for a 
 longer time than originally contemplated. A sec- 
 ond chamber, called the Queen^s, with a pointed 
 roof, was then made in the masonry of the Pyr- 
 amid 67 feet above the level of the base, and 
 had a horizontal passage for 110 feet in the ma- 
 sonry communicating with the original passage, 
 sloping at an angle with it. Finally the King's 
 Chamber, or main one, the last made with flat 
 roof and fivjB chambers of construction placed 
 above, the last triangular to lighten the weight 
 of the masonry, was approached by the same 
 passage as the Queen's Chamber, much en- 
 larged and cased with red Syenitic granite, ter- 
 minating in a horizontal passage with granite 
 port-cullises, which were also to defend the 
 entrance. This chamber was ventilated by 
 two shafts, and had in the centre the plain but 
 royal sarcophagus of the builder of the Pyra- 
 mid. The stones of the chambers of construc- 
 tion had still scrawled in red ochre upon them 
 the name of Khrum Khufa, or Cheops, accom- 
 panied by other marks which the masons had 
 scrawled upon them in the quarries. * 
 
 * Pa^e 113. 
 
104 THE GREA T P YRAMID. 
 
 But over against these guesses stands the 
 fact that matured plan marks every step in the 
 progress and completion of the gigantic pile. 
 Supposing that the underground vault was 
 abandoned, and therefore left in its strange un- 
 finished condition, the change would be de- 
 cided on before the vast layers of masonic 
 stone were piled one upon another to the 
 height of fifty feet. But then the ascending 
 passage, to take the place of the one cut down 
 in the bed-rock, would have been commenced 
 at once and so as to lead directly to the interior 
 chamber, which on the supposition that it was de- 
 cided to build it, after the underground vault was 
 abandoned. But this was not done. The de- 
 scending passage is built in the masonry up to 
 fifty feet above the foundation. Its entrance 
 is that number of feet from the original pave- ' 
 ment. Why was this passage built up in the 
 structure to this height if the plan of the sub- 
 terranean vault had been abandoned ? It 
 would not have been thus continued, but in- 
 stead of it a passage would have been formed 
 direct from the pavement into the interior 
 chamber, which was to be reached (on this sup- 
 position of a change in the plan) instead of the 
 underground vault. The evidence is then, in 
 the complete construction of the passages, 
 that, the ascending passage, which starts out of 
 the descending one was acccording to the origi- 
 nal plan of these scientific architects. And 
 then the question comes up, " Why f " There 
 
THE GREA T P YRAMID. 105 
 
 is no conceivable reason for this downward and 
 then this upward passage unless to symbolize 
 some great facts or scrolls of human history. 
 
 What facts, then, or scrolls of history, are of 
 sufficient importance, or bear such relation to 
 human destiny, as to be worth a record in 
 changeless symbols in the " oldest and most 
 gigantic of human works % " 
 
 Was there a period in the history of the race 
 marking an ascent from the downward drift 
 of humanity to a knowledge of the moral law or 
 to a knowledge of the true God % It will be 
 answered by even the skeptic that such an 
 event took place when the people of Israel 
 passed from slavery and ignorance and idolatry 
 to freedom, and written law and moral culture 
 and the worship of the one holy God — when 
 they left Egypt for Canaan. 
 
 Whatever may be the doubts of men with 
 regard to the miracles and the divine interposi- 
 tion connected with the exodus of the Hebrews 
 from Egypt, all acknowledge that it was an ad- 
 vance and upward movement, and that it affect- 
 ed the current of history for all time. Its 
 effects, after nearly four thousand years have 
 elapsed, are felt by every nation under heaven 
 to-day. Was this world-crisis of sufficient im- 
 portance to be symbolized by an ascent from 
 the downward way leading to the confused, 
 floorless and, as it is termed, " bottomless pit," 
 
106 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 adown wMch the eye of the Dragon Star 
 gleamed ? 
 
 Now let it be observed that this upward pas- 
 sage is 988 inches from the beginning of the 
 downward one — ^just about the number of years 
 ( so far as chronology can determine the exact 
 number) intervening between the dispersion of 
 the tribes of men at BabePs tower and the going 
 up of Israel out of Egypt. 
 
 That dispersion, with the confusion of tongues, 
 is significant of universal world-history. 
 
 " The account," says Lange, " of the building 
 of the Tower of Babel may be regarded as the 
 genesis of the history of the human race, striv- 
 ing after a false unity ; of the doom of confusion 
 that God, therefore, imposed upon it ; of the 
 dispersion of the nations into all the world, and 
 of the formation of heathendom as directly con- 
 nected therewith." 
 
 " Go to, let us build a tower for us, and make 
 to ourselves A name." It was a Titanic, heaven- 
 defying undertaking; and from it sprang the 
 heathen fable of the war of giants against the 
 gods. The very name Nimrod (which is in the first 
 person plural) signifies '''' come let us'''' — rebel. 
 " Its grammatical force shows that it had a pop- 
 ular, instead of a family, origin. It was the 
 watchword of the impious leader afterwards 
 given to him by his applauding followers." But 
 on the God-defying hosts fell the scattering and 
 confounding blow. On the summit of all their 
 defiant pride was written a sudden and strange 
 
THE GREAl PYRAMID. 107 
 
 defeature. "A confounding of languages pre- 
 supposes a confusion of consciousness in re- 
 spect to God and the world. The history of the 
 tower-builders is the history of the origin of 
 heathenism." * 
 
 Kow this downward course of man — ;just after 
 the judgment of the deluge, and the rainbow, 
 symbol of mercy — had its marked starting-point 
 a^out one thousand years before the exodus of 
 Israel from Egypt. The word "about" is here 
 used because there is much of uncertainty in 
 regard to historic dates. Bible chronology is 
 based on the lives of the patriarchs rather than 
 the occurrence of historic events. Hence the 
 difficulties in forming correct chronological ta- 
 bles, as will be seen from the following list : 
 
 Authorities. DateofDeJuge 
 
 Septuagint B. C, 3246. 
 
 Samaritan - 2998. 
 
 Jackson - 3170. . 
 
 R. S. Pool •' 3129. 
 
 W. Osburn (Monumental History of 
 
 Eo^ypt) " 2500. 
 
 Elliot's Horaz, Apocalipticas •' 2482. 
 
 Browne^ s Ordo Sceeulorum " 2446. 
 
 Playfair ■■ 2351. 
 
 Usher - 2348. 
 
 Petavius (Smith's Bible Die.) •• 2327. 
 
 It is difficult to come to any conclusion 
 when such a wide divergence is found in results 
 
 * Fabri's "Origin of Heathendom," p. 39, 
 
108 THE GREA T P VRAM ID. 
 
 whicli must have followed years of careful re- 
 search by men fully competent to the task. 
 What then is the best (or it may be said) only 
 safe method to pursue when so many different 
 dates of one event meet us f Let us take the 
 mean (or average) of the whole, thus striking a 
 balance between 3246 years and the lowest 
 date. 2327. Now the mean or average date is 
 2741, and strange to say the Pyramid's chrono- 
 logical measurements symboUze this very num- 
 ber. It is quite evident that the dispersion did 
 not take place until about two hundred years 
 after the flood. '' I make the beginning of 
 idolatry, and the consequent dispersion, to have 
 occurred about 200 years after the flood.* 
 This would make the date of the dispersion 
 (according to the average above given) 2541 
 years before Christ. The exodus, by the more 
 recent investigations, occurred over 1500 B. C 
 !Now counting from the beginning of the en- 
 trance passage to the beginning of the ascend- 
 ing one, the inches bring out this very date (as 
 we shall see). In other words, counting back 
 from the ascending passage 988 inches, and 
 taking these as an inch for a year, we find a 
 number coming within a fraction of the date of 
 that grand epoch — the confusion of tongues 
 and the dispersion of the tribes. The last re- 
 sults of chronological study make that date 
 2541 years before Christ. The Pyramid meas- 
 
 * Jones' "Hist. Church of God," p. 7. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 109 
 
 uring makes it 2530 before Christ or 988 years 
 before the exodus. 
 
 A thousand inches (nearly) from the com- 
 mencement of that downward way along which 
 the Dragon Star shone, there is a sudden and 
 marked ascent. This is the fact in the Pyra- 
 mid to-day — utterly purposeless unless it was 
 intended as a symbol. But here is the fact in 
 the world-history. A thousand years (nearly) 
 from the commencement of the downward 
 drift of humanity under the influence of the 
 Dragon — the serpent-devil — and there was an 
 ascent. A portion of the downward drifting 
 race was lifted up from the dehumanizing abomi- 
 nations, the bestial idolatry, in which all the 
 tribes of men gloried — were lifted by a mighty 
 arm, by prodigy and miracle, by cloud and 
 flame pillar — were called to hear the voice of 
 the Eternal and receive his written law from 
 the lightning-girt summit of Sinai, trembling be- 
 fore the presence of the I AM. 
 
 The fact that the Hebrew nation had drifted 
 into abasing calf-worship, and bestial degrada- 
 tion in their slavery to the worshipers of the 
 ox, and the ape, and the crocodile, is denied 
 by none. The fact that they were delivered 
 from all this, to a purer and loftier plane of re- 
 ligion and morals and manners, is nowhere de- 
 nied. There stood Israel through succeeding 
 centuries — the lighthouse in a world of gloom 
 — rooted on the rock of truth, while the nations 
 
110 THE ORE A T P YRAMID. 
 
 of the earth drifted on, on to darkness and per- 
 dition. 
 
 Standing by itself, with no other features or 
 parallels, synchronizing important eras both as 
 to beginnings and endings — from what they 
 spring and to what they led — this apparent sym- 
 bolism might seem far-fetched or fanciful. But 
 when there are added to all this the mechanical 
 data next to be noticed, the wonderful agree- 
 ment of inches with years in movements of 
 providential history fills us with conviction and 
 awe. 
 
 The conclusion is thus forced on the mind, 
 that this epoch in the history of the race, 
 the call of Israel from Egypt with all its bear- 
 ings upon the religious thought, culture ana 
 destiny of humanity, is memorialized both in re- 
 gard to its date and continuance in this vast 
 monument, '' a sign, and a witness to the Lord 
 in the midst of the land of Egypt.^' 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FROM EGYPT TO BETHLEHEM. 
 
 '^K IKE hundred and eighty- eight inches from 
 \ this descending passage, which leads to 
 •• the subterranean pit, and down which the 
 Dragon Star looked, is the ascending passage — 
 the way of escape from the downward way. 
 Mne hundred and eighty-eight years (or, in 
 round numbers, one thousand years) after the 
 dispersion, occurred the exodus from Egypt. 
 This passage, accurately measured from the 
 floor of the ascending one up to the ceiling and 
 then along to where it ends in a still longer, 
 higher and grander one, is just 1542 inches. 
 
 It has been shown in the first part of this 
 volume that an inch for a year, in the two longest 
 lines in the Pj'ramid — the added diagonals — 
 measure the great precessional cycle of 25,827 
 years. It has been shown that from the begin- 
 ning of the downward passage to the beginning 
 of this ascending one is equal, an inch for a 
 year, to the time from the dispersion to the time 
 Israel left Egypt. And now here is another 
 wonderful coincidence (as many term it), viz : the 
 length of this ascending passage is equal, an 
 inch for a year, to the time from the exodus 
 from Egypt to the birth of Christ. 
 
 Ill 
 
112 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 Uslier^s Chronology dates tke exodus 1491 
 years before Christ. This, says the learned 
 editor of Lange's Commentary, is usually set 
 down in round numbers 1500 years. But that 
 writer tells us that it was several years more 
 than this. The Rev. W. B. Galloway, M, A., 
 Vicar of St. Mark's, Regent's Park, London, in 
 a work entitled " Egypt's Record of Time to ttie 
 Exodus of Israel," makes the date of the ex- 
 odus 1542 years before Christ.* Now the exact 
 measure of this ascending passage from the 
 floor of the downward one to where the long 
 high corridor begins, is exactly 1542 inches.i 
 The precise measure of the Jewish dispensa- 
 tion is thus marked in clearest symbolism in the 
 length of this ascent. 
 
 But more than this : the passage itself, as has 
 been shown, is blocked up with hard immovable 
 granite wedges. Why % There was no appar- 
 ent object for this. But as a symbol it corre- 
 sponds with the Jewish dispensation. That 
 people were not only lifted from the downward 
 drift but were sealed. God chose them as His 
 own "peculiar people." Ko one can be a Jew 
 unless the blood of Abraham courses his veins. 
 God separated them from the nations of the 
 earth and distinguished them physically, men- 
 tally and in all their characteristics from every 
 
 * "Egypts Record," p. 371. He also proved that the 
 birth of our Savior occurred, according to our reckoning, 
 only within a fraction of the year B. C. 1. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 113 
 
 other people under heaven. They have been 
 supernaturally wedged in, nationally, as effectu- 
 ally as that passage is literally. 
 
 This itself is a living miracle. If a handful 
 of water taken from one of our inland stream- 
 lets were flung into the Mississippi and borne to 
 the Gulf and across the Atlantic and swept 
 through seas and oceans, by wind and wave 
 round the earth, and yet every drop retained 
 its own freshness and consistency, unchanged 
 and unaltered by rushing currents or crushing 
 waves, it would be no greater miracle than that 
 Grod should have taken a handful of people out 
 of Egypt and cast them upon the tides of hu- 
 manity, to be scattered abroad over earth 
 through centuries, and yet remain distinct from 
 all other peoples — a Jew proud of his lineage 
 and name wherever found or driven. How 
 significantly is this symbolized by the blocking 
 up with immovable granite rocks, the entrance 
 to this 1542 inch passage ! 
 
 Another peculiarity about this ascending 
 passage is, that at its beginning, -and in other 
 portions to be mentioned, the tunnel is cut 
 through a huge block of stone, so that floor, 
 walls and ceiling are formed by the one piece. 
 The passage is nearly four feet high and three 
 and a half feet wide, and passes through stone 
 after stone, fitted closely together, through 
 which the square passage-way has been cut. 
 These plates at the entrance, cut clean through, 
 extend to the length of 253 inches from the 
 
114 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 floor of the descending passage. Beyond this 
 the walls, floor and ceiling are built, for some 
 distance at least, with regularly jointed stones. 
 Here then at the beginning this passage is hol- 
 lowed out of great blocks of rock. Is there 
 anything in the commencement of the Mosaic 
 dispensation — which lasted in years the length 
 of thig passage — which these plates of stone 
 can symbolize ^ We know that God girded and 
 sheltered Israel and bore them up with His 
 providence and His mighty hand for centuries 
 after they left Egypt. In the wilderness, under 
 Joshua and the Theocracy, God was their 
 strength and their rock of defense. What could 
 more fittingly symbolize this than that this pas- 
 sage at its beginning should be girded by the 
 plates of stone so cut through, that floor, wall 
 and ceiling should be of one unbroken piece t 
 These plates are again found far up the passage, 
 and answer in inches to the years of David and 
 Solomon's reigns. Then another portion follows 
 with jointed stones. But at that number of 
 inches which corresponds to the years of Heze- 
 kiah and other pious kings, these massive gird- 
 ing plates form the way. And at the number of 
 inch-es distant from the beginning of the pass- 
 age, which equals the years when the voice of 
 prophecy was silent — amounting to 400 years — 
 there are none of those rock girders for 400 
 inches up to the end of the passage. These may 
 be only singular coincidences, but how wonder- 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 115 
 
 ful that they should follow each other with 
 pointed and almost speaking significance ! 
 
 In addition to the distances that these pro- 
 tecting plates are placed, marking an inch for a 
 year, in Jewish history, it was found by the 
 measurement of a competent civil engineer that 
 the intervals of passage length at which these 
 remarkable stone plates were introduced, were 
 the breadths of the central room in the build- 
 ing called the King's Chamber. This chamber 
 in its breadth was the standard of measure in 
 these significant safety plates, indicating that 
 the more glorious periods in the Jewish dispen- 
 sation, marked by massive bored rocks, were 
 prophecies of a still more glorious period, when 
 the ^''Mng shall reign in righteousness." 
 
 In viewing this first ascending passage, we 
 find these facts with their corresponding sym- 
 bolisms. First, we have its beginning, 1000 
 inches (nearly) from the beginning of the down^ 
 ward passage, and the exodus of the Jews .from 
 Egypt took place 1000 years nearly from the 
 *' dispersion " at BabePs tower; then we have 
 the blocked-up mouth, symbolizing the Jewish 
 nation sealed and kept by the providence of 
 God; and then we find these solid plates of 
 stone answering, as we have shown, to the 
 special blessings of God to that nation when it 
 acknowledged His rule ; and then we find it end- 
 ing at the close of 1542 inches, the length in 
 years of the Jewish dispensation, or from the 
 exodus to the birth of Christ, when it leads into 
 
116 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 a grand corridor or gallery of seven-fold its 
 height. ^ 
 
 Are not these facts significant % What shall 
 we think of them % Meet them with a shrug of 
 the shoulder or a scornful sneer % There stands 
 the Pyramid with these shapings and construc- 
 tions and measurements in themselves purpose- 
 less, and there are the facts of history — tradi- 
 tions the skeptic may call them — fitting into 
 these measurements or symbols like the tongue 
 and groove of a piece of refined mechanism. 
 Does it not appear that these historic facts affect- 
 ing human weal through time and eternity were 
 stamped on this gigantic pile in that morning of 
 humanity as a witness for God to men in this 
 scof&ng, doubting age, " a sign and a witness to 
 the Lord in the land of Egypt % " 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE GRAND CORRIDOR AND GOSPEL ERA — THE 
 DISRUPTED ROCK, AND THE RESURRECTION 
 OF JESUS. 
 
 PIA2ZI SMYTH, del! 
 
 The Missing Ramp-stone. 
 
 hi- 
 
 HE ascending passage, with all its wonder- 
 I ful symbolism, ends 1542 inches from the 
 floor of the downward one, in a lofty cor- 
 ridor or gallery, twenty-eight feet high and a 
 
 117 
 
118 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 little over six feet wide. As tlie visitor emerges 
 from the first ascending way, in which he has to 
 bend down, it being but four feet high, he feels, 
 with the relief of an upright position, that he 
 is in a room arranged with some noble de- 
 sign. It is built of, or rather cased in with, pure 
 marble. The joints are needle-proof, and though 
 cemented can scarcely be seen. The roof, 
 twenty-eight feet high, is spanned with thirty- 
 six great granite blocks, between which plates 
 of marble form the polished ceiling. All along 
 the sides of this princely corridor are ranges of 
 marble slabs overlapping so as to make the 
 passage narrower at the floor than at the ceil- 
 ing. No marble hall can be found on earth sur- 
 passing it in beauty of finish or mechanical skill. 
 Professor Greaves two hundred years ago 
 described it as "a very stately piece of work, 
 and not inferior either in respect of the curios- 
 ity of art or richness of materials to the most 
 sumptuous and magnificent buildings." "This 
 gallery or corridor," continues the old Oxford 
 professor, " or whatsoever else I may call it, is 
 built of white and polished marble, the which is 
 very evenly cut in spacious squares or tables. 
 Of such materials as is the pavement such is 
 the roof and such are the side walls that flank 
 it. The coagmentation or knitting of the joints 
 is so close that they are scarcely discernible to 
 a curious eye. And that which adds grace to 
 the whole structure, though it makes the pass- 
 age the more slippery and difficult, is the accliv- 
 
THE GREA T P YE AMID. 119 
 
 ity and rising of the ascent. The gallery is 
 bounded on both sides with two banks like 
 benches of sleek and polished stone. Upon 
 the top of these benches, near the angle where 
 they close and join the wall, are little spaces 
 cut in right-angled parallel figures, set on each 
 side opposite one another, intended, no question, 
 for some oilier end than ornamentation.^^ 
 
 " In the casting and ranging of the marbles in 
 both the side walls there is one piece of archi- 
 tecture in my judgment very graceful, and that 
 is that all the courses or ranges, which are but 
 seven, do set and flag over one another about 
 three inches, the bottom of the uppermost 
 course overflagging the top of the next, and so 
 in order the rest as they descend." * 
 
 Colonel Yyse, two hundred years after the 
 foregoing was written, gave to the world a very 
 similar description of the grand corridor, call- 
 ing the bench, or bank stones, "ramps." Every 
 visitor verifies these statements. There is that 
 noble gallery, with those " stone benches," or 
 ^' ramps," opposite one another, '•'' intended^ no 
 question^ for other purposes than ornamentation.^^ 
 
 What could these "other purposes than orna- 
 mentation " be ? 
 
 Richard A. Proctor accounted for them, " a 
 priori,'^^ as he termed it, as made for seats for 
 
 * Greaves' Work, edited by Dr. Birch, 1737. 
 f Contemporary Review, Yol, 1, No. 3, p. 39. 
 
120 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 star-gazers, who took their positions in this 
 ascending grand gallery before the structure 
 had been built up any higher. He imagined a 
 quantity of water poured into the descending 
 passage. This water would be a mirror just at 
 the corner where the entrance is met by the 
 ascending passage. *'Tho observer, sitting on 
 those slanting benches, would look down the 
 one passage and see Alpha Draconis by rays 
 reflected in the water." 
 
 A most scientific guess, assuredly. The 
 astronomers sit on stone benches, which in- 
 cline, facing each other, what for % They could 
 have gone down into the passage which was lev- 
 eled at Alpha Draconis and observe it to their 
 hearts^ content. But instead of this they are to 
 sit fronting each other and look down into a dish 
 of water to see the star by reflection, and this 
 when the star was Jcnown to be directly along 
 the line of the ascending passage. To build 
 this passage with all its elaborate finish for such 
 a temporary and useless purpose would be 
 ridiculous. And the credulity of the scientist 
 who can believe that this was the purpose of 
 these stone benches is marvelous. 
 
 But let it be observed — 
 
 1st, This grand corridor commences at the 
 close of the 1542-inch gallery. That 1542-inch 
 gallery agrees in its symbolism of length and 
 construction with the length and peculiarities 
 of the Mosaic dispensation. At the close of 
 that dispensation the revelation of the Son of 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 121 
 
 God from heaven took place — 1542 years after 
 the exodus of Israel from Egypt. 
 
 2d, This grand corridor is twenty-eight feet 
 high, seven times the height of the 1542-inch 
 ascending x)assage. Seven we know is the num- 
 ber of 'perfection — as " seven spirits," " seven 
 churches," "seven angels," " seven years," etc. 
 The gospel dispensation was the perfection of 
 Judaism. It is called "the glory that surpass- 
 eth." Of the dispensation of the law it is writ- 
 ten, " For even that which was made glorious 
 had no glory in this respect by reason of the 
 glory that excelleth." Glorious as is the 1542- 
 inch ascending passage, with its massive tun- 
 neled plates, it has no glory in this respect " by 
 reason of the glory that excelleth" in this grand 
 gallery. Seven, the number of perfection, 
 marks its walls up to its termination, by the 
 seven courses of over-lapping marble plates on 
 each side from floor to ceding, as well as its 
 seven-fold height. 
 
 3d, Thirty-three inches from its beginning, 
 where the first of those " stone benches " or 
 "ramps " would be found, is a yawning hole, so 
 formed that it should appear as though the ramp 
 stone had been uprooted, or burst up and out 
 from beneath. That it was thus driven out 
 from beneath, or made to appear so, is evident 
 from the fact that a portion of the adjoining 
 stone has been torn away with it. 
 
 The absence of this first "ramp stone" has 
 9 
 
122 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 been accounted for in this way. The workmen 
 having plugged up the ascending passage lead- 
 ing to this grand corridor, had no way of escape 
 but down this hole. They therefore, after fill- 
 ing up the ascending passage with great stones, 
 descended through this narrow, uneven way al- 
 most down to the subterranean vault, and then 
 up the long descending passage to the outlet. 
 But would not these masterly architects and 
 workmen have found it easier to have blocked 
 up or filled with rocks that ascending passage 
 as they were building upwards, especially as the 
 hole must deform the otherwise symmetrical and 
 highly finished corridor? But if they over- 
 looked all this as the building progressed up- 
 ward, how easy for such skilful workmen as 
 the gallery shows them to have been, to fit a 
 slab of stone over the way of escape and as 
 the last man descended let it fall into its place, 
 and thus preserve the completeness of the whole 
 plan. 
 
 In fact, if the plugs and great stones filling up 
 the ascending passage were not put there be- 
 fore the structure was built any higher, they 
 could not have been put there at all. It would 
 have been impossible for the workmen to fill in 
 these great stones in the passage after it was 
 built up to its full height. But if the wedges 
 and great blocks of stone were put in the pas- 
 sage as the work went on, then there was no 
 occasion for the workmen to escape anywhere. 
 In any view of the case the way, Col. Vyse and 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 123 
 
 others account for this missiDg ramp stone and 
 the yawning hole is unreasonable. 
 
 No, there is no explanation of this missing 
 stone — nor, indeed, of those still standing — un- 
 less it be that it symbolized some great event. 
 
 Now it is convincingly significant of this 
 that just thirty-three pyramid inches from the 
 beginning of this seven-fold corridor — thirty- 
 three inches from the end of the 1542-inch pas- 
 sag6 — occurs this disrupted " ramp stone,'^ as a 
 part too, of the plan of the symmetrically con- 
 structed apartment. 
 
 There is the fact, unaccountable unless in- 
 tended as a symbol. 
 
 Then here is the historic fact that fits it. 
 Thirty-three years from the birth of Jesus, an- 
 nounced by the choral melody of the angels, 
 He was crucified. His body laid in the stony 
 crypt, where all earth's hopes lay buried with 
 Him. But He could not be held in death's grasp. 
 " He burst the marble jaws of death." He rose 
 in triumph from the grave, and triumphantly 
 placed above it the standard inscribed with 
 His and His people's watchword — " I AM the 
 
 RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE." 
 
 Thirty-three years from Christ's birth in the 
 stable was His resurrection from the tomb; 
 Thirty-three inches from the beginning of the 
 grand corridor is this chasm left open by the 
 burst-up stone. The four-foot-high passage 
 merges in the seven-fold one, up to this mouth 
 of the chasm. For thirty-three inches it is 
 
124 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 lost in the corridor. Then comes this welFs 
 mouth, where the stone has been driven out 
 from beneath. After this the same four-foot- 
 high ascending passage is traced again — emerg- 
 ing at the left of the grand corridor, in a hor- 
 izontal direction, into what is called the 
 Queen's Chamber. And the Mosaic dispen- 
 sation was merged in the dawn of the new 
 dispensation while Jesus was on eaith, yet 
 remained under the law. Thirty-three years 
 from his birth, and the vail of the temple 
 was rent in twain and the line of demarkation 
 was drawn. If the four-foot-high passage — 
 whose length, 1542 inches, measures the years 
 of the Mosaic dispensation — symbolizes the 
 Jewish people, then from the resurrection of 
 Jesus the Christ they go on with no far- 
 ther ascent until their destiny as a people 
 shall be fulfilled. The horizontal passage 
 will be noticed in the chart of the interior 
 of the Pyramid. It will be observed that it 
 strikes off in a straight line from the chasm or 
 welFs mouth where the stone has been forced 
 up. How perfect this symbolism ! Since the 
 resurrection of Jesus, there has been no ad- 
 vance in Judaism. The Jews were in numbers 
 then just about what they number to-day. 
 They had their Sadducees and Pharisees then, 
 they have their orthodox and reformed Jews now 
 — the latter ritualistic theists. Towards the end 
 of this four-foot-high horizontal passage — 
 whose height and breadth are the same as the 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 125 
 
 first ascending passage — the floor is lower. That 
 lowest section is just one-seventh of the whole 
 length, marking one peculiarity of the Jews — 
 their adherence, nominally at least, to the sev- 
 enth day, and perhaps indicating also the 
 people's lower religious plane, as the years go 
 on. 
 
 Then comes the so-called Queen's Chamber. 
 Two air tubes have been discovered in it. They 
 had been covered in by the builders, as though 
 intended to symbolize the blindness of that 
 people. These air passages have not been traced 
 to the exterior and may symbolize something in 
 their history not yet understood at this date. 
 
 This was the chamber of sevens. Its two- 
 sided ceiling added to its floor and four walls, 
 makes it a seven-sided room, with other sevens 
 indicated in its measurements. This chamber 
 doubtless symbolizes a future of restoration and 
 glory to that people whom God ennobled and 
 called up from the degrading idolatry of 
 Egypt, and whom he sealed and has kept 
 through all the mutations of centuries for some 
 future privileges and blessings. 
 
 From this disrupted ramp stone, just thirty- 
 three inches from the beginning of the corridor, 
 and from which starts out the continuation of 
 the 1542-inch-long passage, begin the ranks of 
 stone-like benches opposite each other all the 
 way up the sides of this avenue. 
 
 Each one of these — as noticed by Professor 
 Greaves two hundred years ago, and again by 
 
126 THE GREA T P YRAMID. 
 
 Col. Vyse in 1837, and fully described with 
 their measurements by Professor Smyth, and to 
 be seen by all who visit the Pyramid — has 
 lateral holes cut "near the angle where they 
 close and join tbe wall." These, as the old Ox- 
 ford professor said, " were intended for some other 
 end than ornamentation^ 
 
 They must have been intended as symbols — 
 to teach something. But what do these spaces 
 cut in these " stone benches " resemble, but 
 graves — the end and rest of all living? Each 
 of these stones ( except the two lower and up- 
 per ones) is marked by a piece of stone 
 about thirteen inches broad and eighteen inches 
 high, let into the wall uprightly.* 
 
 As nothing could better symbolize in stone 
 the rest of the grave than those side-long holes, 
 cut at intervals in the stone benches or ramps 
 so nothing could better symbolize in stone the 
 resurrection from the grave, than these up- 
 right stones let into the wall above them. 
 
 The resurrection of Christ is the central and 
 crowning doctrine of the gospel. " If Jesus be 
 not raised your faith is vain, ye are yet in your 
 sins," " then they also who are fallen asleep in 
 Christ are perished." f It was the most import- 
 ant event in the annals of the universe. If that 
 "oldest and most gigantic work of human 
 hands " was built'for no other end than to sym. 
 
 * Siny til's*' Our lnbeiitance," etc., p. 453. 
 t 1 Cor. 15 : 17, 18. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 127 
 
 bolize this one occurrence, it would have been 
 worthy of all the skill, science, labor and ex- 
 l»ense lavished upon the mighty structure. It 
 is evidently symbolized there in this grand cor- 
 ridor, just thirty-three inches from the termin- 
 ation of the passage which fitly symbolizes the 
 Jewish dispensation. And then from this sym- 
 bol of the grave and resurrection, commence 
 these side-long holes — these little grooves, 
 backed by the upright stones indicating a 
 rising up. Christ's resurrection is the spring 
 and the pledge of the resurrection of His peo- 
 ple. "Because He lives we shall live also." 
 " He hath begotten us again unto a lively hope 
 by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the 
 dead."* This livelii or living hope of our res- 
 urrection springing from His, is the light that 
 shines all along the ranks of God's struggling 
 hosts. " For if we believe that Jesus died and 
 rose again, even them also which sleep in Jesus 
 will God bring with him." f And so Paul con- 
 sidered the whole gospel bound up in this, when 
 he said in his defense before Agrippa, " of the 
 hope of the resurrection of the dead I am called 
 in question."! 
 
 To quench this hope, to undermine this doc- 
 trine, rationalists and skeptics and false pro- 
 fessors direct their most ingenious efforts and 
 
 * I P.ter r 5. 
 t I Thess. 4 : 14. 
 
 X Acts 23 : 6. 
 
128 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 aim their heaviest blows. It is assailed by phil- 
 ologists, and physiologists, and biologists, and 
 scientists of every form and grade, while it is 
 let alone, if not denied by a sensational or per- 
 functory ministry. But there stands this found- 
 ation-doctrine, this glorious hope, in towering 
 prominence in God's Word; and there stands the 
 symbol of this foundation doctrine, this glorious 
 hope, in towering prominence in the Pyramid — 
 in this seven-fold gallery. The upright stones 
 lie back of, and rise above the ramp stones — 
 the resurrection hope over the gloom of the 
 grave. 
 
 And yet even physiology and biology show 
 that the waste, or loss or change of the particles 
 of matter composing our bodies, has nothing to 
 do with corporeal manhood. Each one of us is 
 the same man, the same woman, though now 
 possessing no particle of the matter in his or 
 her body which composed it a few years ago. 
 These particles, the whole materials which 
 made up our bodies a few years since, have gone 
 into other organisms — are scattered to the four 
 winds — yet we are the same men and women we 
 were before these mutations. And what if in 
 the resurrection there is not found one particle 
 of the matter which composed our bodies when 
 we died ? Will this in any way affect the reality 
 of our identical manhood ? 
 
 The dead shall be raised at the coming of our 
 Lord, and we who are left over and are alive at 
 His coming shall be changed, and so shall we be 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 129 
 
 forever witli the Lord. This is the completion 
 of that perfection of Judaism — the end of our 
 salvation. 
 
 Then as the corridor is seven times the height 
 of the 1542-inch gallery which precedes it — the 
 symbol of perfection — and as sevens are marked 
 all up its sides in the seven over-lapping ranges 
 of marble plates, so there are four times seven of 
 these little graves cut in the top of the bench 
 stones, or " ramps." Four we know is the sign 
 of completion. The four living creatures in 
 Ezekiel's vision and also in the Apocalypse de- 
 note the complete number of the saved ones. 
 The terrible and continuous wrath visited upon 
 the Jews is called four sure judgments on 
 Jerusalem. The impious world-power is figured 
 as four beasts. And so we read of four angels 
 who sound their trumpets as symbolizing the 
 completion of Earth's woes.* And so, also, the 
 white, the red, the black and the pale horses — 
 four, symbolizing the calamities which precede 
 the opening of the fifth seal. 
 
 Here then is evidence, without any straining, 
 that the number four stands for completion, as 
 seven does for perfection. And so the grand 
 gallery, or corridor, is four times seven. It has 
 seven over-lapping stone courses all along its 
 sides up to four times seven feet in height, and 
 it has four times seven of these graves cut in 
 
 * Eev. 8:78. 
 
130 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 its four times ^ecen beiicli or ramp stones, with 
 the upright stones rising over them. Could 
 these stones preach more plainly — could these 
 truths be more impressedly engraved in monu- 
 mental marble % Four times seven meet us at 
 every point in the splendid corridor, like signa- 
 tures of the divine hand that His work is per- 
 fect, His plans complete, and testifying to the 
 completeness of His perfect work, when the 
 blessed dead who die in the Lord " shall live 
 and reign with Christ on earth a thousand 
 years.'' ^^ This is the first resurrection.^^ * 
 
 How that grand gallery witnesses unto the 
 Lord! All along its ceiling are great granite 
 blocks binding and sheltering it. They are 
 thirty-six in number — equal to the months in 
 the public and vicarious ministry of Jesus. 
 These thirty-six protecting granite blocks — the 
 beams of this mysterious chamber — harmonize 
 in number with its cubic contents. The gallery 
 contains, by the most exact calculations, thirty- 
 six millions of cubic inches, being one million 
 for each one of the thirty-six roof-stones. The 
 measure of the Holy City, which John saw com- 
 ing down from heaven : which with four square 
 was "twelve times twelve thousand furlongs," f 
 that is, 144,000. This was also the number 
 of those John saw standing with the Lamb on 
 
 * Rev., 20. 
 
 f Vatican Manuscript. Rev. 7 : 4. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 131 
 
 Mount Zioii — 144,000. I^Tow this measure of the 
 Celestial City, 144,000 furlongs, brought over in 
 cubits (250 cubits in a furlong), make thirty-six 
 million cubits. The symbolized measure of the 
 Holy City is therefore given in the Apocalypse, 
 36,000,000 cubits ; and the contents of this grand 
 gallery are 36,000,000 inches. 
 
 " JSverytJiing is mysterious^^'' wrote the French 
 Academician years ago ; " I repeat it, every- 
 thing is mysterious in the construction and dis- 
 tribution of this monument — the passages, ob- 
 lique, horizontal, sharply bent, of different di- 
 mensions. We are not at all enlightened," he 
 continues, " either upon the origin, or the em- 
 ployment, the utility, or any motive/or the grand 
 gallery or its various passagesJ^ 
 
 Yet this most elaborate and closely-calculated 
 design is stamped upon all adjustments and pro- 
 portions of the Pyramid. It is now acknowl-' 
 edged by all thinking men that it was built foi^'^ 
 astronomical observations, or memorializations."^ 
 It stands on the line of 30 ° latitude. It is placed 
 in the center o^ the habitable land distribution 
 of the earth. It has such angles, such height 
 and such breadth of base as practically to solve 
 the most profound problems in mathematics and 
 astronomy. Could it be that the architects who 
 planned on such scientific principles the vast 
 structure, would form the grand gallery, with all 
 its skilful workmanship, all its elaborate finish, 
 all its harmonious arrangements, with no pur- 
 
132 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 pose, no object in view as to ^Ht8 employmtnt^ 
 utility or any motive f " 
 
 In all else but its symbolization it is useless 
 and worthless and meaningless. On^y as a par- 
 able in stone could its wise, scientific architects 
 have planned it. Its symbolism once admitted 
 and it becomes a volume whose leaves of pol- 
 ished stone testify for God to this drifting infi- 
 del age — testify to the glorious plan of the 
 redemption of a ruined world. 
 
 
■i 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GOSPEL SYMBOLISM OF THE GRAND COR- 
 RIDOR — A PARABLE IN STONE. 
 
 WE have seen that thirty-three inches 
 from the north wall or beginning of the 
 grand gallery is the yawning chasm, or 
 mouth of "a strange well,'^ where the ramp 
 stone has been burst up from beneath. This so- 
 called well, or souterraiti, as it is also termed, 
 runs down through the masonry and through 
 the original rock (which in this place was left 
 I standing and forms a part of the structure). 
 ! Nearly half way down it expands into a bowl- 
 ■ shaped grotto. It continues its ragged and 
 . Jrregular course till it meets the main descend- 
 ing passage very near to the subterranean pit. 
 ■"V^a^The ascending passage from the main entrance, 
 it will be remembered, was found blocked up so 
 that the entrance by this path into the corridor 
 was " enjoined." Yet that glorious gallery with 
 all its significant symbolisms might be gained 
 through this narrow and difficult way up through 
 the broken-out stone thirty three inches from 
 the gallery's north wall. Whatever this was 
 intended to indicate, one thing is certain, that 
 not through the Law nor through the Mosaic dis- 
 pensation, its covenants or its circumcision, nor 
 
 133 
 
 '^ ■ 
 
134 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 through the promises or privileges sealed to the 
 Jews, could the gospel blessings be reached. 
 God called that nation only to covenant engage- 
 ments, and then sealed it. But by a new, a dif- 
 ficult, a narrow and yet a living way, through 
 the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, can 
 the nations rise from the very borders of the pit 
 into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, and 
 be blessed with Abraham and his seed. Hence 
 the wall of partition is shattered forever. 
 
 How could this be more clearly syllabled in 
 monumental stone than it is here? The down- 
 ward drift continues to the verge of the bottom- 
 less pit. The way into the grand gallery is 
 wedged, sealed, blocked up. Bat a new, a 
 difficult, narrow way leads to it through the 
 chasm made by the burst-up ramp stone, sym- 
 bol of Christ's atoning work. 
 
 This symbolism of the Pyramid was first sug- 
 gested, not by the astronomer who visited the 
 Pyramid for strictly scientific observation, but 
 by a deeply pious converted Jew who had never 
 been in Egypt. The account of this is given by 
 the Astronomer Eoyal for Scotland: 
 
 "It was in 1865," says Prof. Smyth, "that 
 a letter reached me at the Great Pyramid, trans- 
 mitted with some high recommendations of its 
 author, by that most upright knightly man, the 
 late Mr. Maitland, Sheriff Clerk of the County 
 of Edinburgh. 'He is a young ship-builder,' 
 said he, 'a son of a ship-builder, an accom- 
 plished draughtsman, and I hear that he lately 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID, 135 
 
 turned out, from his own design, one of the most 
 perfect ships that ever left Leith Docks. From 
 his boyhood upwards he has been an intense 
 student of whatever could be procured con- 
 cerning the Great Pyramid. His family surname 
 is Menzies.' 
 
 " This Israelite, then, but no Jew, it was who 
 first, to my knowledge, broke ground in the 
 Messianic Symbolisms of the Great Pyramid, so 
 intensified subsequently by Mr. Casey, and, after 
 long feeling his way in an humble and prayerful 
 spirit, at length unhesitatingly declared that the 
 immense superiority in height of the Grand Gal- 
 lery over every other passage in the Great Pyr- 
 amid arose from its representing the Christian 
 Dispensation. ' 
 
 " * From the north beginning of the grand gal- 
 lery floor,' said Eobert Menzies, 'there, in the 
 southward precession, begin the years of the 
 Savior's early life, expressed at the rate of a 
 pyramid inch to a year. Three-and-thirty inch- 
 years, therefore, bring us right over against the 
 mouth of the well, the type of His death, and 
 His glorious resurrection too; while the long, 
 lofty grand gallery shows the dominating rule 
 in the world of the blessed religion which He 
 hath established thereby, over-spanned above 
 by the thirty-six stones of His months of min- 
 istry on earth, and defined by the floor-length in 
 inches (1881 inch years) as to exact periods. 
 The Bible, fully studied, shows that He intended 
 that first dispensation to last only for a time ; a 
 
136 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 time, too, which may terminate very much 
 sooner than most men expect, and shown by the 
 southern wall impending.' 
 
 " Whereupon I went straight to the south wall 
 of the grand gallery, and found that it was im- 
 pending ; by the quantity, too, if that interests 
 any one, of about one degree (about six years ) ; 
 and where Mr. Menzies could have got that 
 piece of information from I cannot imagine, for 
 thei north wall is not impending; he, too, was 
 never at the Great Pyramid, and I have not seen 
 the double circumstance chronicled elsewhere. 
 The first ascending passage, moreover, he ex- 
 plained as representing the Mosaic dispensa- 
 tion. I measured it, and found it to be, from 
 the north beginning of the grand gallery, the 
 natal year of Christ, to its junction with the 
 roof of the entrance-passage northward and 
 below, or to some period in the life of Moses, 
 1,483 pyramid inches, and when produced across 
 that passage, so as to touch its lloor,^ 1,542 
 inches. 
 
 "But the chief line of human history with 
 Eobert Menzies was the floor of the entrance- 
 passage. Beginning at its upper and northern 
 end, it starts at the rate of a pyramid inch to a 
 year, from the dispersion of mankind (2527 B. C), 
 or from the period when men declined any 
 longer to live the patriarchal life of divine in- 
 struction, and insisted on going off with their 
 own inventions^ and which is sensibly repre- 
 sented to the very life or death in the long-con- 
 
THE GREA T P YRAMJD. 137 
 
 tinned descent of the entrance- passage of the 
 Great Pyramid, more than 4000 inch-years long, 
 until it ends in the Bottomless Pit, a chamber, 
 already mentioned, deep in the rock. One es- 
 cape, indeed, there was, in that long and mourn- 
 ful history of human decline, but for a few only, 
 when the exodus took place in the ascending 
 passage which leads on into the grand gallery, 
 showing Hebraism ending in its original pro- 
 phetic destination — Christianity. But another 
 escape was also eventually provided, to prevent 
 any one being necessarily lost in the bottomless 
 pit ; for, before reaching that dismal abyss, 
 there is a possible entrance, though it may be 
 by a strait and narrow way, to the one only 
 gate of salvation through the death of Christ, 
 mz.: the well representing His descent into 
 hades, not the bottomless pit of idolaters and 
 the wicked at the lowest point to which the en- 
 trance-passage subterraneously descends, but a 
 natural grotto rather than artificial chamber, in 
 the course of the well's further progress to the 
 other {)lace ; while the stone which once cov- 
 ered that welPs upper mouth is blown outwards 
 into the grand gallery (and was once so thrown 
 out with excessive force and is now annihilated) 
 carrying part of the wall with it, and indicating 
 how totally unable w^as the grave to hold Him 
 beyond the appointed time. 
 
 " ' That sounds fair and looks promising 
 enough, so far,' said Mr. Casey, ' but that is not 
 J(9 
 
l.'^8 THE GREA T P YRAMID. 
 
 enough yet to be the turning point with me, 
 when interests so immense are at stake. We 
 must have more than that, and something not 
 less than proof of this order. Measuring along 
 the passages backward from the north begin- 
 ning of the grand gallery, you will find the exo- 
 dus at either 1483 or 1542 B. 0., and the disper- 
 sion of mankind in 2527 B. 0. up at the begin- 
 ning of the entrance-passage. Kow you have 
 already published, years ago, that you have 
 computed the date of the building of the Great 
 Pyramid by modern astronomy, based on the 
 Pyramid's own star-pointing, and have found it 
 at 2170 B. 0. That date, according to this new 
 theory, must be three or four hundred inches 
 down inside the top or mouth of the entrance- 
 passage. Is there any mark at that point *? For 
 I feel sure that the builder, if really inspired 
 from on high, would have known how many 
 years were to elapse between his great mechan- 
 ical work in the beginning of the world and the 
 one central act of creation in the birth of the 
 Divine Son, and he would have marked it there 
 as the most positive and invaluable proof.' 
 
 " So away I went," says the Astronomer Eoyal, 
 "to my original notes to satisfy him, and begin- 
 ning at the north end of the grand gallery count- 
 ed and summed up the length of .every stone 
 backward all down the first ascending passage 
 then across the entrance-passage and up the 
 floor-plane towards its mouth, and soon saw that 
 2170 B. 0. would fall very near a most singular 
 
THE GREA T P YRAMID. 139 
 
 portion of the passage. This was a line ruled 
 on the stone from top to bottom of the passage 
 wall, at right angles to the floor — such a line as 
 might be ruled with a blunt steel instrument, 
 but by a master hand for power and evenness. 
 There was such a line on either wall, the west 
 and the east, of the passage, and the two lines 
 seemed to be pretty accurately opposite to each 
 other. When Mr. Casey required, in 1872, to 
 know exactly where, on the floor, the line on 
 either side touched the plane, there was no 
 ready prepared record to say. Every interve- 
 ning measure by joints between the two ex- 
 tremes, and over scores of joints, had been pro- 
 cured, printed and published to the world in 
 1867 ; but just the last item required, merely the 
 small distance from the nearest joint to the 
 drawn line, was wanting. 
 
 " So I wrote to my friend Mr. Dixon, 0. E., 
 then erecting his brother's bridge over the Mle, 
 near Cairo, requesting him to have the goodness 
 to make and send me careful measures of the 
 distance of the tine line on either passage wall 
 at the Pyramid, from the nearest one of the two 
 gi^a.s^'- vertical joints, not giving him any idea 
 what the measure was wanted for, but only ask- 
 ing him to be very precise, clear and accurate. 
 And so he was, taking out also as companion 
 and duplicate measurer his friend Dr. Grant, of 
 Cairo; and their doubly attested figures were 
 sent to me on diagrams, in a manner which left 
 no room for misunderstanding. With this piece 
 
140 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 of difference measure I set to work again on my 
 older joint measures of the whole distance, and 
 was almost appalled when, on applying the 
 above difference, the east side gave forth 2170.5 
 and the west side 2170.4 pyramid inches or 
 years. 
 
 " ' This testimony satisfies me and fills me 
 with thankfulness and joy,' wrote Mr. Casey, 
 while I never expected to have measured so 
 closely as that along either side of those lengthy, 
 dark and sloping Pyramid passages." * 
 
 In other words, it is found by the most careful 
 scientific measurements that at 628 inches from 
 the ascending passage, counting backward to- 
 wards the entrance, are these two remarkable 
 ruled lines. That ascending passage is 1542 
 inches long. Add this to the 628, and the date 
 of the Pyramid is found. By the lettering 
 on loose stones found by Col. Yyse this 
 date was evidently 2170 years before Christ. 
 By the astronomical calculations made at Col. 
 Yyse's request by Sir John Herschel, this date 
 was found to be 2170 years before Christ. And 
 now, counting back from the beginning of the 
 grand gallery 1542 inches, and then upward to- 
 wards the main entrance 628 inches, the result 
 is 2170 inches, where the two ruled lines are 
 found — the symbols of erection, of building up 
 and marking, — 
 
 * Smyth's " Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramicl," 
 pp. 430-437. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 141 
 
 1. The year the great Pyramid ivas built. 
 
 2. The advent of the God man. 
 
 3. Messianic symhoUsm. an inch for a year 
 in the grand gallery. 
 
 The evidence is startling, that the builders 
 of the Pyramid laid off those passages so that 
 they should be historic scrolls of sacred his- 
 tory — an inch answering to a year. This con- 
 firms the conjecture that the ascending, blocked- 
 up passage was meant to symbolize the time 
 from the exodus to the birth of Christ — 1542 
 years. Then it also follows that the Pyramid 
 was a prophecy of the advent of the Eedeemer, 
 and a parable of the gospel dispensation. An 
 inch for a year, counting backwards 2170 inches, 
 marks the year the massive monument was 
 built. 1542 inches mark the years of the Mosaic 
 dispensation. And thirty-three inches from the 
 beginning of the seven-fold gallery, mark the 
 life and death of Jesus. Oh, it is wondrous ! 
 ''^Mystery, all mystery^'^ exclaimed the Freiicb 
 savant. 
 
 "A sign and a witness unto the Lord in the 
 midst of the land of Egypt." 
 
 Testifying to this infidel age the truth of 
 God's word. 
 
CHAPTER YII. 
 
 THE HISTORIC PARABLES AND PROPHECIES. 
 
 JA VERYTHING is mysterious,^^ wrote the 
 
 ' JLL/ Erencli savant.* " We are not at all 
 enlightened, either upon the origin or 
 the employment, the utility or any motive what- 
 ever for the grand gallery and its various 
 passages." 
 
 Why those benches, or ramps, all along the 
 sides of this long narrow passage, leaving a 
 pathway ot only two feet between them *? Why 
 these lateral slits or holes like little graves 
 in each of those bench or ramp stones ? Why 
 these upright stones let into the wall behind 
 them ? Why the height of this passage 28 feet, 
 while those leading to and from it are but four 
 feet ? Why those thirty-six great granite blocks 
 spanning its narrow ceiling, and why its exquis- 
 ite mechanical workmanship and polish ? If it 
 was intended for a passway only, why all this 
 elaborate work and finish ? 
 
 All indeed is mystery^ only unfolded when the 
 whole is viewed as a parable in stone — a monu- 
 mental apocalypse of eternal truth and human 
 history. 
 
 We have already seen how completely its 
 
 * Jornard, 1801. 
 
 142 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. ' • 143 
 
 meclianical data symbolize transactions the 
 most important in their bearing on the world's 
 destiny. These ramp holes or little graves, 
 with the upright stones beside them, voice in 
 impressional though silent eloquence, the res- 
 urrection from the grave following the resur- 
 rection of the Lord Jesus Christ. They com- 
 mence, after the symbol of His resurrection ; 
 they succeed the uprooted ramp stone which is 
 thirty-three inches from the beginning of the 
 grand gallery. 
 
 And now, here is a remarkable fact in regard 
 to those benches or ramp stones which border 
 the corridor all the way up from the burst-out 
 stone to the high step at its south end. The 
 ramp stones are smooth and unmarked ( except 
 by the little graves already mentioned) for 
 just four hundred inches from the beginning of 
 the gallery ; there commences a change. Along 
 nearly the whole distance from 400 to 1800 
 inches of the western ramp, and occasionally 
 along the eastern, there are longitudinal parallel 
 scratches. " They are inflected upon and along 
 its upper edge."* 
 
 Then further along from the beginning, from 
 640 to 1400 inches, these bench stones are 
 fissured or parted from the walls, and especially 
 from 1000 to 1317 the ramp stones have yielded, 
 so as almost to break away the portion marked 
 with the lateral holes or little graves. 
 
 * Smyth's " Life and Work.'' 
 
144 • THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 Now as there is no pressure on these bench 
 stones or ramps, which are, in fact, borders, 
 ( like our wash boards ) all along the corridor — 
 as they are seldom trodden on by explorers — the 
 conclusion forces itself upon the mind that 
 these fissures were formed in these stones when 
 placed in position, and were designed as symbols 
 of historic events connected with Christ's peo- 
 ple. They must have been constructed as they 
 now appear, and for what purpose but as sym- 
 bols— j)ro2?/ie^ic parables in stone f 
 
 Four hundred inches from the beginning of 
 the gallery these scratches are " inflected.''^ In 
 that year the general defection from the simple 
 gospel began. Early in the year 400 A. D., Con- 
 stantine the Great took the churches under im- 
 perial patronage, and pastors of independent 
 churches soon began to aspire to princely rank. 
 In the year 381, the second Council of Constan- 
 tinople decreed that "the bishop of Constanti- 
 nople should take rank after the bishop of 
 Eome." A few years afterwards the Eoman 
 bishop claimed to be Peter's successor, and in 
 445 Yalentinian issued a law " that the primacy 
 of the apostolic seat having been established 
 by the merit of the apostle Peter, the whole 
 Church shall acknowledge the bishops of that 
 city as rulers."* 
 
 Protests and separations from this law-church 
 
 * Neaiider, VoJ. 11,. p. 174. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 145 
 
 occurred all through the empire, followed by 
 banishments and varied persecutions. A hier- 
 archy was erected after the models of Judaism 
 and Paganism. The spiritual true people of 
 God, the true Church of Christ, fled into the 
 wilderness. The heavy hand of despotic power 
 crushed out their visible existence. 
 
 From the year 400 A. T>. to the latter years of 
 the 14th century, when Wyckliffe lifted his 
 voice in England, and Huss in Bohemia, and the 
 Waldenses in the Alps, the doctrines of the gos- 
 pel, like the stone benches in the grand gal- 
 lery, from the same and to the same number gf 
 inches, were marked, broken, "fissured," "and 
 almost severed " from the foundation of the 
 gospel. 
 
 In the Pyramid gallery the east ramp has 
 yielded ; from 640 inches to 1087 is frail material 
 and " is fissured and parted from the walls, also 
 the floor from the ramps."* Especially is this 
 the case from 1087 to 1317. On the east side 
 the ramp is broken away and the holes or little 
 graves are almost entirely gone. The crum- 
 bling or decay of the stones here, both on the 
 east and west side, surpasses any portion of the 
 structure within or without. 
 
 At 640 inches, this " frail material fissured and 
 parted from the walls " appears. In 622 Moham- 
 medanism was established in the East, having 
 
 Life and Work at the Great Pyramid." 
 
146 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 burst like a tornado from the desert. The trans- 
 gressors had come to the full Maryology, and 
 masses for the dead and priestly intercessions 
 took the place of the worship and intercession 
 of Jesus, the only Lord and priest. The darkness 
 of Egyptian night prevailed. And from the time 
 of the first crusade, till the hour tbat Peter 
 de Bruys was burnt at the stake, 1144 A. D. 
 — agreeing with these fissured and loosened 
 ramps — the gospel was silenced east and west, 
 and the traces of the true churches are lost 
 sight of in the darkness and confusion, and 
 deep apostacy of the times. From 640 to 1400 
 inches, the floor is parted from the ramp stone. 
 From the year 640 ( the missing stone ), to the 
 Reformation — the time of the Lollards in Eng- 
 land and Waldenses on the continent — scarce 
 a voice was raised in testimony of Christ and 
 His truth. 
 
 These striking symbols with all their speak- 
 ing fitness and significance, when taken alone 
 have no seeming importance. But associated 
 with all the vivid emblems of that mysterious 
 gallery, they proclaim the Pyramid's interior a 
 parahle of prophecy, as the proportions of the 
 exterior proclaim it a parable of scientific facts. 
 
 Passing up this wondrous chamber with its 
 lofty ceiling spanned with thirty-six polished 
 granite blocks which shelter and protect it- 
 numbering the months of Christ's public min- 
 istry — with all its solemn, awe-inspiring mys- 
 
THE G^EAT PYkAMID. I4f 
 
 teriousness — we come to a Mgli step very near 
 the gallery^s close. 
 
 It is a part of the floor of the corridor, or grand 
 gallery. It has the lateral holes or little graves 
 cut in it, as the ramp stones have. Why this 
 sudden step three feet high % 
 
 It is remarkable for being of softer lime- 
 stone than any other part of the floor. It is 
 cracked and worn, as is no other part of the 
 floor lines in the Pyramid. The material of 
 which this high step is composed was evidently 
 selected for a purpose. The step itself is pur- 
 poseless, and more than useless, except as 
 a symbol. It is a sudden and unneces- 
 sary interruption in the ascent. If, as some 
 suppose, the stone chest in the King's Cham- 
 ber was brought up through this passage, or if 
 any thing else large, and heavy, and requiring 
 care, was to be borne along into the inner cham- 
 ber, this abrupt step of three feet would be an 
 inconvenient obstruction. But there it is, and 
 of frailer material than any other portion of the 
 floor. It indicates a sudden uprise, associated 
 with lack of stability. 
 
 This step three feet high occurs just 1813 
 inches from the beginning of the gallery. That 
 number of inches corresponds with a remark- 
 able year in elevated ranges of gospel service. It 
 was the year following the close of the war be- 
 tween the only two nations in which Christ's peo- 
 ple were awake to the duty of sending the gospel 
 to the nations — England and America. It was 
 
148 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 a time of temporary peace through Europe. It 
 was soon followed by the fall of Napoleon, and 
 a general peace through the earth. It was the 
 year when the British Parliament lifted the op- 
 pressive hand of the East India Company from 
 off the missionaries who sought to reside and to 
 labor in India. Up to 1812, missionaries who 
 might arrive in India intent on preaching the 
 gospel were '^ at once expelled from the 
 country." Judson and Eice, the first American 
 missionaries to the East Indies, reached that 
 land of pagan darkness in 1812. While at Cal- 
 cutta they were harassed by the East India 
 ( British ) officials, and ordered out of the 
 country, and had to retire to the Isle of France. 
 The great Wilberforce, after a twenty years' 
 struggle, having been defeated in his advocacy 
 of the " Indian clauses " in 1793, rose in triumph- 
 ant eloquence to plead the cause of the mission- 
 aries in 1813, and on the night of the 22d of 
 June of that year the " clauses " were passed in 
 the British House of Commons by a majority of 
 53, and became law in India. The missionaries 
 returned to Burmah. The British flag was 
 henceforth their protection. Wilberforce had 
 declared " this East India subject is assuredly 
 the greatest that ever interested the heart or 
 engaged the efforts of man " — " the greatest of 
 all causes, namely, of laying a ground for com- 
 munication to our India fellow subjects of Chris- 
 tian light and moral improvement," and then 
 wrote in his private diary, " I humbly hope that 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 149 
 
 God has great designs in view for the East, and 
 that they will be executed by Great Britain/' 
 
 This Act of the British Parliament was fol- 
 lowed by a general awakening through England 
 and America, in regard to sending the gospel to 
 the nations. It was an epoch in the history of 
 the gospel dispensation. The day had come 
 when " many should run to and fro and knowl- 
 edge increase," and " this gospel of the kingdom 
 be preached to all nations, and then shall the end 
 come." 
 
 That year was followed by the advance in all 
 that characterizes the activity and benevolence 
 of the present age — discoveries, inventions, 
 missionary organizations, public spirit and gen- 
 erous liberality in the founding and endowment 
 of educational and humane institutions, the 
 pride and boast of the hour. Society has been 
 lifted to a higher plane, and Christianity in all 
 its outward efforts and aggressive movements 
 stands on a lofty step from which she can look 
 back and down on the narrower and lower path 
 trodden in past years. 
 
 But with all this intellectual and social prog- 
 ress, all this advance in the outward, the* active 
 and the material, where is the piety, the heart 
 devotion, the calm thought and unshrinking 
 faith, of these elevated and enlightened times *? 
 
 As the high step in the Pyramid is of pliable 
 or of less substantial material than any part of 
 the floors either of the grand gallery or the 
 other passages, so in all the boasted progress 
 
150 • THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 and advance of the present day there has been 
 a crumbling away of basal truth. Vital doc- 
 trines have been and are ignored and even de- 
 nied with levity, and often with derision, by the 
 accredited ministers of the churches of the 
 Reformation. Downright infidels have poured 
 from Lutheran pulpits ridicule on the doctrines 
 of grace preached by Luther. A bishop of the 
 Anglican church is in foremost ranks of the im- 
 pugners of God's word. Dignitaries in Scot- 
 land's free church have become the apologists 
 and abettors of skepticism. In " evangelical " 
 pulpits and theological schools of almost every 
 denomination the full or real inspiration of 
 God's word has been denied. Work is the 
 watchword and faith is decried. The upward 
 step is the image of that lack of rugged, stead- 
 fast, immovable faith which once distinguished 
 the followers of the Lord. 
 
 The magnificent endowments of literary and 
 theological schools, the erection of splendid 
 houses of worship, the provisions made for the 
 helpless, and the bond of sympathy established 
 between distant peoples by which the public 
 sentiment is aroused by the cry of the oppressed, 
 and aid is rendered to the victims of flood or 
 flame — all this is an upward step, elevating this 
 nineteenth century above all ages of the past. 
 Yet beneath all this is an emasculated, shat- 
 tered, yielding theology, which places humanity 
 above dogma — that is, a depraved nature above 
 divine truth, worJc Sihoye faith, the material above 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 151 
 
 he spiritual, and the present above the future. 
 The time has come when " men will not endure 
 sound doctrine. ^^ Well-paid musicians, and 
 costly floral displays, and secular themes, and 
 the sounds and sights in so-called evangelical 
 churches, have taken the place of the glorious 
 gospel of our blessed God. The upward step, 
 fractured and marred as it was when placed 
 there toward the close of the graod gallery, is 
 a parable in stone of the days preceding Christ^s 
 coming. "As it was in the days of Koah, so 
 shall it be in the days of the Son of Man." 
 
 What is the record of the years in which we 
 now live ? 
 
 " This is a delicate, soft-stepping, silken-slip- 
 pered age,'' says a Christian philosopher, " pat- 
 ronizing the filler feelings and a high-flown emo- 
 tional virtue ; vice has cast away its coarse and 
 tattered garment, and, though finding no great 
 difldculty in obtaining admittance into good so- 
 ciety, must come with sleek visage, in a spruce, 
 modern suit, glittering with what seems real 
 gold; the religion that languishes in luxurious 
 aspirings or dreams, is very widely approved of. 
 But does not an elevated and insidious but fatal 
 pride tend to pervade the moral atmosphere of 
 the time ? We will glow in lofty ardor over the 
 pages of Fichte, Carlyle, Schiller or Goethe, but 
 it is a balmy and consoling air which breathes 
 its mild adulation through our souls ; for is it 
 not our own nobleness which is so gratefully 
 evoked % We will worship in the Temple of the 
 
152 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 Universe, with a certain and proud homage, like 
 that of the stars, and winds, and oceans ; but 
 our lordly knees must not be soiled by getting 
 down into the dust. We will perform with 
 Goethe the great moral act of self-annihilation, 
 and wrap ourselves, with much ado, in the three 
 reverences ; but it were strangely bigoted to 
 weep like an old Puritan because we cannot 
 leap from sin, our shadow. Christianity, we pro- 
 claim, is pervading the age more deeply than 
 ever before; not now as a constraining and an- 
 tiquated form, but as an essence and life ; not, 
 indeed, with remarkable definiteness, not troub- 
 ling itself to answer such minor questions as 
 whether Christ's history is an actual fact, or 
 whether Paul was an inspired preacher or a 
 moral genius troubled with whims, but with a 
 grand expansiveness and philosophic tolerance 
 sweet to remark, casting a respectful and even 
 deferring glance toward its plebeian ancestor of 
 Judea, in whose steps, however, an enlightened 
 descendant cannot exactly walk." * 
 
 This is the upward step — the close of the gos- 
 pel dispensation symbolized by that three-foot 
 step of soft and unendurable material at the end 
 of the grand gallery. 
 
 And over this step the end or south wall im- 
 pends. This may be noticed by examining the 
 engraving. It leans as though it might fall over 
 
 * Bay lie's " Christian Life," p. 44. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 153 
 
 that remarkable step. The close may come at 
 any moment, but its coming is surely near. 
 
 1881.4 inches is the floor-length of this won- 
 derful seven-fold corridor. This is the length, 
 however, when the calculated measurement is 
 continued up the inclined floor under the step 
 to where it ends evenly with the end wall. But 
 the step itself is 36 inches high and 61 inches 
 along or towards the end wall ; that is, 97 inches 
 from the line where the step commences. This 
 makes the grand gallery floor line measure — 
 
 To the step 1813 inches. 
 
 To top of the step 36 " 
 
 Along the step 61 " 
 
 Whole floor length ..1910 " 
 
 If these symbolisms are true, if there was an 
 object in all this elaborate work in the grand 
 gallery, if the 33 inches mark the period from 
 Christ's birth to His death and resurrection — 
 unless all these wondrous symbols are treated, 
 as they will be by millions, as trifles deserving- 
 no attention — if there is any truth in God's 
 Book and reliance on its prophetic teachings, 
 and correspondence between the times in which 
 we live and those announced by the Holy Spirit 
 as preceding the coming of the Son of Man — 
 then the close of this dispensation is near, and 
 the change is even now taking place, and tlie 
 time is at hand. The teachings of the Pyramid 
 as a parable in stone, correspond with the teach- 
 ings of Christ in the parable of the virgins, and 
 of the tares and the wheat. 11 
 
CHAPTER yill. 
 ESCHATOLOGY — THE GREAT TRIBULATION. 
 
 tj(jASSING from the long and lofty corridop 
 I over the Mgli step there is a sudden change. 
 The passage is low and narrow, with no 
 ascent, but a dead level. The passage which 
 leads into the grand gallery is fifty-two inches 
 in vertical height. It is with bent form that it 
 is traversed. But the one leading from its lofty 
 corridor is only forty-four inches — the lowest 
 passage-way, except the so-called Well, in the 
 whole Pyramid. The transition is impressive. 
 The change is abrupt, oppressive, appalling. 
 From the high step, from the lofty granite- 
 spanned ceiling, here is a narrow, low tunnel in 
 traversing which one must move with pain. 
 
 What a speaking parable of the tribulation 
 which Christ predicts must follow the close of 
 this dispensation ! Foretelling the close of this 
 gospel age or dispensation Jesus said : " This 
 gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all 
 the world FOR A WITIS'ESS, and then shall the 
 end come."* And again " and the gospel must 
 first be published to the nations.'''t Then fol- 
 lows the time of sorrow, of tribulation, of 
 
 * Matthew 24: 14. 
 
 t Mark 13 : 10. 154 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 155 
 
 eclipse and decline. Now the brother shall be- 
 tray the brother to death. " And yet ye shall 
 be hated by all men for my name's sake, but he 
 that shall endure to the end, the same shall be 
 saved." " For in those days there shall be 
 affliction such as was not from the beginning of 
 the creation which God created unto this time, 
 neither shall be. And except that the Lord had 
 shortened those days no flesh should be saved, 
 but for the elect's sake, whom He hath chosen, 
 He hath shortened those days."* Speaking of 
 this same time — the end of the gospel age — 
 preceding the time when " many of those that 
 sleep in the earth shall awake," the Holy Spirit 
 says through Daniel : " And at that time shall 
 Michael stand up, the great prince which stand- 
 eth for the children of thy people; and there 
 shall be a time of trouble, such as never was 
 since there was a nation even to that same time : 
 and at that time thy people shall be delivered, 
 every one found written in the book." f 
 
 A time of trouble such as never was. And the 
 passage following the high step and the end of 
 the gallery is lower than any preceding path- 
 way. It is lower than the downward one along 
 which the Dragon star gleamed. 
 
 But though so-low, so difficult, it is short. It is 
 only fifty-three inches in length. " But for the 
 
 - Mark 13 : 19. 
 t Daniel 12 : 1. 
 
lo6 THE GREA T P YRAMID. 
 
 elect^s sake he hath shortened these days."* 
 " Now," saith the Lord Jesus, "learn a para- 
 ble of the fig-tree, when her branch is yet 
 tender and putteth forth leaves ye know the 
 summer is nigh." This He said in regard to the 
 literal predictions just quoted. "The gospel is to 
 be preached a8 a icitness to all nations and then 
 shall the end (of this dispensation ) come." The 
 high step, the elevation and advancement, the 
 activities and enlightenment, the organized 
 efforts to send the gospel every where, aided 
 often by men who deny the full inspiration of 
 God's blessed word— all these, like the leaves on 
 the fig-tree, are the signs of the coming hour 
 — or time of tribulation. The parable of the 
 Pyramid corresponds with the parable of the fig- 
 tree. 
 
 Fifty -three inches lead to a comparatively 
 high but small room known as the ante-cham- 
 ber. It is so called because it is so near, and 
 leads into the principal room, or King's Cham- 
 ber. This ante-chamber is about twelve feet high^ 
 five and a half feet wide, and nine and a half feet 
 long. Its sides are ornamented with what may 
 be termed wainscot ting, or dado cut in the stone 
 walls. These walls are part of granite and part 
 of limestone. 
 
 Passing along the narrow and low pathway 
 from the high step this ante-room is entered, 
 
 * Mark 13 : 20. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 157 
 
 but just at the entrance is a double block of 
 granite crossing the whole chamber from east 
 to west. It is set in hollows cut in the wall, and 
 rests on a ledge made by these hollows. This 
 block of granite crosses the entrance-way into 
 the chamber twenty-one inches from the wall 
 and doorway. It has been supposed to be a 
 part of a system of sliding doors, and the 
 grooves cut all round the room, with no stones 
 set in them, have been supposed to have been 
 cut for a similar purpose. Hence this double 
 block was called by Professor Greaves, two 
 hundred years ago, the " granite leaf" — the word 
 leaf being borrowed from the old term used to 
 denote a sliding door over the water-way of the 
 lock or gate of an English canal. The unfamil- 
 iar term, however, is confusing. It is better to 
 think of it simply as a double granite entrance 
 block, for it never could have been intended, as it 
 never could have been used, for a sliding door, 
 or portcullis. It rests solid — not loose, as some 
 who have written on the Pyramid have said — 
 on ledges formed in the wall by the hollows cut 
 above these ledges, though not built into or con- 
 nected with the walls. The double block — that 
 is, one stone upon another — is made to fit into 
 these grooves or hollows nearly midway from 
 the ceiling to the floor. This double block is 15 
 inches thick and 48 inches in breadth from the 
 grooves on the east and west wall— the part of 
 the chamber above the grooves and wainscot 
 being broader by 17 inches than the part of the 
 
158 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 room where this double granite block crosses it 
 like a frowning judgment bar. 
 
 And this block of hard granite set there in 
 the firm grooves has to be met and "under- 
 gone " by all who pass into the royal chamber. 
 The thought involuntarily starts in the soul of 
 every serious person standing before it and 
 passing under it : " Has not this a solemn 
 meaning, and is not that solemn meaning the 
 test, the trial, the judgment — the day of de- 
 cision and of vengeance, the great and terrible 
 day of the Lord, when He will sit as a refiner — 
 when the heathen shall be given Him for an in- 
 heritance and the uttermost parts of the earth 
 for a possession, and He shall break them with 
 a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a 
 potter's vessel ■? " * 
 
 On that frowning granite block, that impresses 
 one with what must be the crushing effects of 
 its fall on any one passing under — grinding to 
 powder and breaking to pieces as a potter's ves- 
 sel — there is a jutting protuberance or bulb at 
 its top. It is called the granite boss. It is the 
 shape of a half moon, and has been carefully 
 formed by the workman's chisel. It is exactly 
 one pyramid inch thick and five pyramid inches 
 hroad. These are the ground elements of meas- 
 urement throughout the whole vast structure. 
 It symbolizes, indeed, rule, measure and weight. 
 
 * Ps. 2 : 8, 9. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 159 
 
 This whole ante-chamber is fairly syllabled with 
 symbols of earth-commensuration and density. 
 In entering it, all are confronted by this granite 
 moveless standard which crosses and bars up 
 the chamber, and on which are stamped the units 
 of measure, the inch and the cubit. It seems 
 to voice with eternal emphasis the declaration, 
 "Judgment also will I lay to the line, and right- 
 eousness to the plummet, and the hail shall 
 sweep away the refuge of lies." * 
 
 Like so many other things in this mysterious 
 structure, there is no possible use or object for 
 this double granite block unless it be symboli- 
 cal. That it was not intended for a portcullis, 
 or sliding door, is evidenced by the fact that it 
 rests in the solid wall in which the grooves are 
 cut for it to fit and lodge. This part of the wall 
 would have to be cut down to the floor before 
 it could be slid down so as to form a door. But 
 then, as it is twenty-one inches from the wall 
 where the entrance is, it could be passed even 
 if it touched the floor. It does not reach the 
 ceiling now, and if it were let down to the floor 
 it could easily be scaled. " I myself," says the 
 Scottish Astronomer, "sat above that double 
 granite block, on a ladder, day after day, with 
 lamps and measuring rods, hut in respectful silence, 
 and generally in absolute solitude, thinJcing over 
 what it might meanJ^ f 
 
 * [sa. 28 : 17. 
 
 ■} Smyth's 'Inheritance,'" p. 175, 
 
IGO THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 In wondrous harmony with all that precedes 
 it, this frowning block of granite which bars a 
 chamber in which, are engraven, in imperishable 
 granite, rules and measures affecting the whole 
 building and relating to all nature, is the sym- 
 bol of the great day of decision, when in right- 
 eousness " He will judge and make war." 
 
 Passing under this double granite block called 
 the " granite leaf," the ante-room is entered. It 
 is a relief. The bowed form erects itself. The 
 air, too, is different. A ventilating tube, though 
 somewhat closed up, enters this room from 
 the far-off exterior, and produces a felt change 
 in the condition of the atmosphere. It is a 
 mysteriously-built room — partly of granite, and 
 partly of limestone. The proportion of these 
 materials to each other is most significant. It 
 will be noticed in full farther along. 
 
 Passing from this ante-room we bow beneath 
 the fivt pilasters, made by grooves in the south 
 wall, through a still lower doorway, being only 
 42 inches in height and 41.4 in breadth. Then 
 follows a horizontal passway, the height and 
 breadth of the entrance or doorway, and 100.2 
 inches long. It is all of granite. It will be ob- 
 served that the granite work commences in the 
 ante-chamber, except the thirty-six roof stones 
 that span the graud gallery. All else till this 
 ante-room is reached is limestone or marble. 
 But here, in the ante-room, commences the 
 granite work, mingled with limestone. What 
 this signifies will appear as we proceed. From 
 
. THE GREA T P YRA MID. 16 1 
 
 the ante-room all is granite. The narrow, low 
 pathway which leads from it into the grand gal- 
 lery is (floor, sides and ceiling) all of this sig- 
 nificant material. The ante- chamber is a relief 
 from the low passage that leads to it. It is over 
 twelve feet high. After passing under the 
 frowning granite leaf, or double block which 
 bars its entrance, there is the ease and free- 
 dom of this twelve-foot high room. It is like the 
 respite for "a little season" from the " tribula- 
 tion '^ which succeeds the close of this dispen- 
 sation. 
 
 But now comes a low, narrow passage again. 
 All however, is granite, and its way leads into 
 the glorious chamber of fifties — the King's 
 Chamber, with its symbolic sarcophagus or 
 coffer. Into this we now enter, and to it turn 
 our attention. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE king's chamber—the STONE CHEST AND 
 THE ARK OF THE COVENANT — THE JUBILEE 
 TEAR— CHRIST'S COMING AND KINGDOM. 
 
 A I \ HIS inner chamber, according to all who 
 i have written about the Pyramid, however 
 they may differ in regard to other theor- 
 etical points, is the sanctuary, the centre and 
 object for which the whole gigantic work with 
 all it wonders was erected. 
 
 It is, in round n ambers, 34 feet long, 17 broad, 
 and 19 high. It is constructed of polished red 
 granite — floors, wall and ceiling being of the 
 same material. The blocks of which it is built, 
 one hundred in number, are squared with nicest 
 accuracy. The joints are needle-proof, though 
 cemented together with a substance of the 
 finest and most adhesive quality. " Ko auto- 
 cratic emperor of recent times could desire 
 anything more solidly noble, and at the same 
 time beautifully refined." 
 
 When first entered by the Arabs, in search of 
 the hoarded wealth of buried kings, they gazed 
 in awe-struck silence on its red walls, which like 
 polished jewelry reflected the gleam of their 
 torches. Their wild shouts of Alia Acbar 
 ceased. Pausing a moment in seemingly bowed 
 
 162 
 
ANTE-CHAMBER. SOUTH END F ; C RAN D^C ALLE RYT'AN D i VYS E'S HOLLOWS OF 
 CONSTRUCTION.ABOVE KINO's CHAM BEB« CROSSE B CIHESliMBICaTE ORANnE. 
 
 ScdZe/ of^SriiisTi, Inches 
 
 100 so 
 
 .1 I I I I i 
 
 .4,5P 
 
 sotF 
 
 i)>£ITCIll£&S6N.£Dltll 
 
164 THE GREAT PYRAMID, 
 
 reverence, they looked noiselessly and cau- 
 tiously for the priceless gems and charms which 
 they expected to find treasured in this secret 
 place. Nothing there, but a red granite stone 
 chest, lidless, nameless and empty, while the 
 pure unlettered polished ranks of red granite 
 blocks, one hundred in number, looked calmly 
 upon them from every side. Kot a hieroglyphic 
 (that is a priest writing ) nor an idolatrous sign, 
 nor a trace of anything Pharaonic or Egyptian, 
 not a sign of kingly or x>riestly ambition or 
 profanation there. Stainless as the cloudless 
 skies above it, was that elaborately-wrought 
 chamber. The red granite, empty, lidless chest, 
 of exquisite finish, and which when struck rung 
 like a bell, was the only furniture in the royal 
 room for which the whole majestic pile was 
 reared. 
 
 The same solemn, majestic and mysterious 
 grandeur meets the eye and impresses the heart 
 of those who enter that chamber to-day, except 
 when thoughtless parties bent on hilarity, and 
 exciting each other to levity, unite in their 
 efforts to break the spell. 
 
 One of the first things to impress the serious 
 visitor to this chamber, is the fact that it is 
 built solely of granite. As before observed, all 
 the rest of the structure, up to the ante-chamber 
 ( except the thirty-six stones that span the grand 
 gallery) is of limestone. Those roof-stones of 
 that corridor agree in number with the thirty- 
 six months of Ohrist^s public ministry. The 
 
THE ORE A T PYRA MID. 1 ^^ 
 
 double block set on ledges, a»nd under which 
 the visitor has to pass into the ante-room, is 
 also of granite. It strikingly symbolizes Christ's 
 judgments on the nations following the close of 
 the gospel dispensation. Then commences a 
 granite passage — a time of preparation, leading 
 into this lofty royal room, which is all of pol- 
 ished granite. 
 
 If red granite — brought from a long distance, 
 as none is found in Egypt, — was intended to 
 symbolize the triumphs of the Eedeemer, then 
 here especially, at the close of all the passages 
 leading to it, and in the chamber for which the 
 whole structure was reared, red polished gran- 
 ite is the fit material to set forth and prove the 
 latter-day glory, when He shall reign without a 
 rival, and His people " shall be priests of God 
 and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thou- 
 sand years." * 
 
 Next to this impression is that produced by 
 the peculiar number everywhere marking this 
 royal central chamber. 
 
 The walls are built in fi'ce horizontal courses, 
 each course nearly four feet in thickness or 
 height. These courses run all round the room, 
 and the joints are so fine — indeed, microscopic — 
 that the five layers or courses have been mis- 
 taken and described by writers for " one great 
 slab reaching from floor to ceiling. * * * Noble 
 
 * Rev. 20: 6. 
 
166 THE GREAT BYRAMID. 
 
 apartment cased with enormous slabs of granite 
 twenty feet high." * But there are five courses 
 of stone in the wall — not single slabs from floor 
 to ceiling. 
 
 These five-times-five courses of stone are sig- 
 nificant, especially if Chevalier Bunsen's inter- 
 pretation of the word pyramid — pyr-met^ divis- 
 ion of five—is accepted. There is a niche, to 
 which reference has already been made, in the 
 chamber below this, called the Queen's Cham- 
 ber, which has five ledges, or stories, its inner 
 edge five times five inches from the center of 
 the wall in which it is cut. In this upper royal 
 chamber the lowest of the five courses of stone 
 composing its walls goes down just five inches 
 below the floor. This course is five inches less 
 in height than those above it "by nearly one- 
 tenth part, if measured from the base of its own 
 granite component blocks which descend in the 
 wall to beneath the floor's level." t 
 
 This five characteristic of the royal chamber 
 is the more remarkable when it is remembered 
 
 * Lord Lindsey, 1837. 
 
 t Professor Smyth gives in full detail the measure of this 
 room in his "Life and Work at the Great Pyramid," vol. 
 11. He accompanies these details with the measures of an 
 engineer sent by a rich man to the Pyramid, with the ob- 
 ject of " tripping up " the astronomer, if possible. The 
 published results of the engineer's measurements com- 
 pletely confirmed Professor Smyth. See "Our Inher- 
 itance," p. 169. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. ■ 167 
 
 that (as shown in the previous chapter) in pass- 
 ing through the lower doorway from the ante- 
 room five pilaster-like marks, made by grooves 
 cut in the wall above it, must be passed under 
 to reach this granite room. 
 
 In addition to these fi^^ courses of stone 
 forming the walls, the floor is on a level with 
 the fiftieth course of masonry in the Pyramid. 
 
 There is something sublime in the contempla- 
 tion of the masses of rock which form the step- 
 like courses of the Pyramid itself. Standing 
 midway up the mighty structure, as the writer 
 has done, one feels that arrangements must have 
 been made on a scale surpassing anything known 
 on earth, and plans originating in the mighty 
 minds were carried out with astonishing preci. 
 sion. Prominent among these executed plans is 
 the level of this royal granite chamber with the 
 fiftieth course of these vast layers of rock over 
 the thirteen-acre base of the huge pile. And 
 these courses, though different in thickness 
 from each other, are each the same thickness 
 all through every one course — that is, whatever 
 height or thickness of stones any one course is 
 begun with, it is kept on, at that thickness pre- 
 cisely, right through the whole Pyramid at that 
 level, though the horizontal line may amount to 
 whole acres. 
 
 " Having measured the thickness of every 
 component course of the Pyramid one day in 
 April, 1865, when ascending the summit, and 
 another day when descending, I compared and 
 
1 68 THE GREA T P YRAMID. 
 
 confirmed these figures with my own photo- 
 graphs of the buildmg, under a compound mi- 
 croscope, and also with similar numbers ob- 
 tained from still more careful measures by the 
 French Academicians in 1799, and then began 
 to sum up the courses' successive thicknesses to 
 give the whole height of any particular number 
 of courses. On reaching in this manner the 
 fiftieth course, lo ! the total height of that stra- 
 tum gave the hypsometrical * level of the floor 
 of the King's Chamber as well as it has yet been 
 ascertained by all the best authorities." f 
 
 The chamber below this, called the Queen's, 
 is just twenty-five of these courses from the 
 base, while this is fifty. It therefore may well 
 be termed the Chamber of Fifties. Here, then, 
 is a room with five and its multiples majestically 
 engraved upon its shining granite. It has on its 
 walls five courses of stone that seem like one 
 It is placed on the fiftieth layer of rock in the 
 Pyramid. It is formed of just one hundred 
 stones, each of the same size, fives, ten times 
 five, and twenty times five. 
 
 Fives mark the earth's polar diameter. It is 
 five hundred millions of inches. Five marks 
 the human form — the limbs parting with five 
 extremities. Five senses mark the animal crea- 
 
 * Measure by barometer, boiling of water, or any other 
 means than by triangulation. 
 
 t " Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," p. 173. 
 
"> 
 
 THE GREA T P YRA MID. 169 
 
 tion. The Hebrews were to march from Egypt 
 in ranks of fives — a number hateful to the Egyp- 
 tians. Five is the number of the Books of 
 Moses, called the Law. Five times five is the 
 ascertained length of the sacred cubit, the meas- 
 uring rod of the ark and the tabernacles. 
 
 In the roval chamber stands the stone chest, 
 the size internally of the chest or ark of the 
 covenant. In that sacred chest were placed the 
 tables of the Law, which Christ came to fulfill, 
 the pot of manna, type of Christ, the bread of 
 life, and Aaron's rod that budded, type of His 
 resurrection. On that sacred chest or ark was 
 the mercy seat, and the unfolding glory of the 
 Shekinah. It was kept sacred in the sanctum 
 sanctoruniy in the secret place of the Tabernacle. 
 It was preceded by the holy place, or ante-room. 
 It was veiled and entered with bowed awe. It 
 was made of acacia^ and was itself lidless, though 
 a mercy seat of pure gold was made to be placed 
 over it. The chest itself was two and a half 
 cubits long, one and a half cubits broad, and 
 one and a half high. These measures, re- 
 duced by Sir Isaac Newton's valuation of the 
 sacred cubit to pyramid inches, equal 62^x37i 
 X37i. 
 
 But this is outside measure, because height 
 and not depth is spoken of, and especially as 
 the mercy seat or lid of gold was to be made 
 the same length and breadth ; which, if inside 
 measure, would make it fit into the box, or fall 
 
170 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 to the bottom, instead of being a lid resting 
 even with its oi^sides. " If we consider the 
 thickness of the sides and ends of the ark, If 
 of an inch, and the bottom, 2 inches — a very fair 
 proportion in carpentery for such a sized box 
 in such a quality of (hard) wood — then its inside 
 measures are 59x34x35^=71,213 as its cubical 
 contents." * 
 
 Now, by repeated scientific admeasurements 
 by Professor Greaves, the old Oxford professor, 
 by Sir Howard Vyse, and especially by the 
 Astronomer Eoyal for Scotland, with sliding iron 
 measuring rods constructed for this very pur- 
 pose — admeasurements, tested and compared by 
 civil engineers, with all modern appliances — we 
 obtain to the thousandth part of an inch the 
 cubit capacity of the stone chest in the royal 
 chamber — 71,213 _cubit inches, f 
 
 Here, then, with all the difficulties attending a 
 true admeasurement to the least fraction, the 
 wonderful fact appears that the sacred ark — 
 type of the Eedeemer — was the same size, in its 
 internal capacity, as the stone chest or ark in 
 the older and more gigantic work of man, this 
 massive and mysterious pile. This stone chest, 
 or ark, moreover, resembles a lidless coffin. 
 So did the sacred ark, which God commanded 
 Moses to make, with the same inner dimension, 
 
 * Piazzi Smyth's "Life and Work." 
 f For full statement of these measures and their con- 
 firmations, see Third Part. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 171 
 
 a 
 
 and place in the secret and sacred chamber of 
 
 the Tabernacle. Each resembles a coffin, or a 
 
 tomb. For the empty, lidless tomb was the 
 
 test and the glory of the Eedeemer's person 
 
 and work. The empty, lidless tomb is the token 
 
 of triumph, ^God gave all men evidence that -^ ^\ 
 
 Christ's work was accepted, " in that He raised 
 
 him from the dead.'' 
 
 " When first humanity, triumphant, passed _; 
 
 The crystal ports of light, and seized eternal youth." {/') 
 
 The stone coffer in the royal granite room 
 resembles a coffin or tomb. So did the wooden 
 coffer in the holy of holies. But no form ever \ 
 mouldered in that granite coffer. No one was 
 ever buried there. Empty and lidless, it rested 
 in its royal enclosure at the terminus of the 
 varied passages through which it could not 
 pass — passages whose measures all relate to 
 this final one, and rise towards it with significant 
 preparations and consummating beauty ; the 
 angle of ascent in those passages leading to it 
 forming the radius of a circle equal to 36524 + , 
 and this again equal to the four sides of the 
 base, and again, divided by one hundred, equal 
 to the days, hours, minutes and seconds in our 
 true year. Earth and heaven, all that concerns 
 man temporally and eternally are symbolized 
 ( whether it be by accident or design *) in this 
 
 * The temperature is 50; the mean density (of the 
 coffer ) of the Pyramid is 5. 7, equal to the mean density 
 of Earth's mass. 
 
172 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 inner royal granite chamber with its symbolic 
 tomb. 
 
 This symbolic tomb, this ark for whose 
 lodgment this glorious granite chamber of 
 fifties was constructed, has been proven by an 
 eminent mathematician and investigator to be of 
 I the same dimensions as the brazen lavers in the 
 Temple. Those lavers contained, from the 
 Hebrew system of admeasurements, 40 hatlis 
 or four homers. The Jewish homer has been 
 shown to be equal to the Anglo-Saxon " quarter," 
 still used in wheat measures. Four of these 
 Hebrew homers or English quarters equal the * *- 
 q> " * contents of this " sacred " coffer. It is therefore 
 the size internally of the brazen laver of the 
 Temple. Those lavers are considered among all 
 evangelical Christians symbols of "the washing — f^ 
 of regeneration by the resurrection of Jesus . g 
 7 Christ from the dead." Does the coffer in the , ^ 
 Pyramid symbolize the same thing 1 Was such ,s^ 
 a glorious fact in God^s dispensation of mercy V- 
 worthy of being memorialized by the men who 
 planned that vast pile and who expressed in its 
 base and height, its location and position — the 
 great facts in creation and the movements of 
 the stars, which it has taken toiling centuries 
 for scientists to reach ? 
 
 But in the Temple, built to symbolize Imman- 
 uel, there was a vessel of still larger capacity 
 than the brazen laver. It was the molten 
 SEA. It was cast in bronze. Its cubical con- 
 tents are given : " And he made a molten sea 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 173 
 
 ten cubits from one beam to the other : it was 
 round all about and its height was five cubits, 
 and a line of thirty cubits did compass it about." 
 " It contained two thousand baths."* 
 
 Now the brazen laver contained 40 baths : 
 " Then he made ten lavers of brass ; one laver 
 contained forty baths," " and he put five on the 
 right side of the house and five on the left 
 side."t 
 
 So the Molten Sea was 50 times the laver — 
 the 40x50rr.2000, the contents of the Molten 
 Sea.f 
 
 The cubic contents, or, in other words, the 
 inner dimensions of the lower course of stones 
 in this chamber, are just fifty times the dimen- 
 sions of the stone chest. This layer of stones 
 was sunk five inches below the granite floor, 
 instead of resting on it, evidently for this very 
 purpose. It is five inches less in height than 
 the other courses forming the walls of the 
 chamber. By the most pains-taking measure- 
 ments, with the most ingenious scientific meas- 
 uring-rods in the hands of experienced en- 
 gineers, this result has come out. Then this 
 lower course of stones composing the wall is 
 the same dimensions as the Molten Sea in the 
 Temple of Jerusalem, which is also fifty times 
 
 * 1 Kings, 7 : 23, 26. 
 t Verses 38-9. 
 
 X The Bath equaled 7 gallons, 4 pints, liquid measure, 
 or 3 pecks and 3 pints dry measure. 
 
s 
 
 .:^ ^ 
 
 IH THE GREAT PYRAMID: 
 
 the dimensions of the brazen laver, while the 
 courses of stones which the floor of the cham- 
 ber rests on is the filtieth layer of rock in the 
 ^'^'^ ^ Pyramid itself. 
 "^^"•^^^ The Ark, the Brazen Laver, and the Molten 
 2* ? Sea — expressive svmbols of the redemption 
 S^ s.^— that is in Christ — seem duplicated in this cham- 
 ber of fifties. It is the Jubilee number, and it 
 f^ ^~ ^^ ^^ Jubilee Chamber. The fiftieth year was 
 -'4^ the herald of deliverance and joy to the op- 
 '^ '\2 pressed Jew. It was the acceptable year of 
 «X ^^^ Lord — the type of deliverance from sin's 
 sorrow and slavery. 
 % j f'S It was the type of that deliverance for which 
 TV »«^»^ " the whole creation travaileth in pain together" 
 — the redemption of the body and the triumph- 
 ant reign of the " second man, the Lord from 
 heaven." The day is coming when the words 
 of the angels will be fulfilled : '-this same Jesus 
 who is taken up from you into heaven shall so 
 come in like manner as ye have seen Him go 
 into heaven."* 
 
 It will be the realization of the vision of John: 
 " And I saw a new heaven and a new earth," 
 "the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down 
 from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride for 
 her husband. And I heard a great voice out of 
 heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God 
 -s with men, and he will dwell with them, and 
 
 * Acts 1 : 11. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 175 
 
 they shall be His people, and God himself shall 
 be with them, and be their God."* "In that 
 day the mountain of the Lord's house shall be 
 established on the top of the mountains and ex- 
 alted above the hills, and all nations shall flow 
 unto it.'' t "The Lord God Almighty and the 
 Lamb are the temple of it."i The Lord God and 
 the Lamb will ever be the Temple, the light, the 
 center and glory of that Tabernacle of God 
 which will be with men. Surely nothing could 
 have more fitly symbolized this glorious con- 
 summation of Christ's burial and triumph than 
 the ark of acacia wood in the holy place of the 
 temple; and surely nothing could be thought 
 nearer in fitness to this than that ark of red 
 granite in the inner sanctuary of this " oldest and 
 most gigantic of all human works." 
 
 Over this chamber of fifties are those little 
 rooms, to which access is found from the upper 
 end of the grand gallery. There are fixe of 
 them — of the same characteristics as the cham- 
 ber below them, but unfinished, incomplete. 
 May not those secret places, those little unfin- 
 ished sanctuaries, typify the rest of the ran- 
 somed ones whom Christ will bring with Him 
 at His glorious epiphany ? " Those who sleep 
 with Jesus will God bring with Him." What- 
 ever these five chambers may mean, there is the 
 
 * Rev. 21 : 1-3. 
 t Isaiah 2 : 1. 
 X Rev. 21 : 22. 
 
m 
 
 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 parable in all its fulness of the coming day of 
 jubilee, when David^s prayer shall be fulfilled : 
 "And let the whole earth be filled with his glo- 
 ry. Amen and amen ! The prayers of David, 
 the son of Jesse, are consummated and ended." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE PYRAMID AND THE PLEIADES. 
 
 / I \ HE most popular living astronomer, R. A. 
 I Proctor, in an article in the American 
 Cyclopedia, uses the following language : 
 ^ " That the Pyramid was erected for astronom- 
 ^ ical purposes may be admitted ; and we may ac- 
 cept Prof. Smyth^s conclusion, * that the build- 
 ing of the Pyramid corresponded to the time 
 when the star a Draconis at its upper transit 
 was visible ( as well by day as by night ) through 
 the long inclined passage which forms one of 
 the characteristic features of the Pyramid.' 
 This would set the epoch about the year 2170 
 B. 0. And it is a remarkable fact that, as Prof. 
 Smyth points out, the Pleiades were at that 
 time in a most peculiar position, well worthy of 
 being monumentally commemorated; for they 
 were actually at the commencing point of all 
 right ascensions, or at the very beginning of 
 running that great round of stellar chronologi- 
 cal measuration which takes 25,827 years to re- 
 turn into itself again, and has been called else- 
 where for reasons derived from other studies 
 than anything hitherto connected with the Great 
 Pyramid, the ' great year of the Pleiades.' " 
 The distinguished astronomer whose language 
 
 177 
 
178 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 we have cited, accepts Professor Smyth^s con- 
 clusion, " that the building of the Pyramid cor- 
 responded to the time when the star a Draconis 
 at its upper transit was visible (as well by day 
 as by night) through that long inclined passage 
 which forms one of the characteristic features 
 of the Pyramid." 
 We have previously dwelt on the symbolism 
 / of the Dragon star shining down that long pass- 
 age^ to the subterranean chamber, or "bottom- 
 less pit." The astronomical fact is there — un- 
 deniable. But alongside of this is another fact 
 equally patent. The tribes of earth, through all 
 their history, have moved downwards in woe 
 and crime to eternal darkness — have moved 
 downwards under the malign light of some hor- 
 rid principle of evil — some fatal spell— some 
 monster spirit who has ruled in terror and in 
 hatCo " The world lieth in the wicked one," says 
 ,^~ ^^ God^s Word. He is "the prince of the power 
 If " of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the 
 * . children of disobedience." He is called the 
 ^^ "God of this world," "the dragon," "that old 
 Ta^T- serpent fche devil." To point to a north star 
 might be a sufficient motive for building that 
 i ^ I: long descending passage or excavating that bot- 
 
 o^ 
 
 tomless, dark chamber. To symbolize the down- 
 2, ^ d^^^w^^^ career of nations, the tragic and gloomy 
 V 4^ march of humanity, beneath the influence of 
 ^ Satan — this terrible fact of history was worthy 
 
 5 of all the labor bestowed upon it. And there 
 
 
 l- f 
 
 it is to-day symbolizing that melancholy fact. 
 
V" 
 
 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 179 
 
 But wMle Alpha Braconis looked down that 
 dismal subterranean pit, the summit was lit by 
 the light of the Pleiades — those gems of heaven 
 whose beauty has fixed the admiring gaze of the 
 pure and the thoughtful of every age. 
 
 The seven bright stars in the constellation 
 Taurus, whose beams blend in soft splendor in 
 our autumn and winter skies, are twice men- 
 tioned in God's Word, and man is asked, " Canst 
 thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades ? " 
 Now astronomy has fairly demonstrated that 
 there is a relative movement of all the star-gal- 
 axies round a central spot, and that this move- 
 ment, like the march of mighty armies to celes- 
 tial melody, includes every system in all the 
 Vast realms of boundless space. Sublime 
 thought! Those still orbs, those countless 
 throngs of trooping worlds — from the mightiest 
 sun that lights up his circling system to the 
 vidette star that looks out on infinite chaos — all 
 move with a measured tread to an eternal time- 
 beat round some central orb — the capital of the 
 universe. The Pleiades have been shown, by 
 the astronomer Medlar, to be that supernal cen- 
 ter around which all these marshaled systems 
 move — the great throne of the Eternal ! 
 
 " Canst thou bnid the sweet influences of the 
 Pleiades *? '' as though God himself termed them 
 the fountain of what men call gravitation — the 
 source of all that binds the wheeling worlds in 
 their orbits, as though this were God's palace, 
 
180 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 where He sits enthroned on the circle of the 
 heavens. 
 
 The well-known " great year of the Pleiades '^ 
 witnessed the completion of the Great Pyramid. 
 The builders so planned and so labored that this 
 "Pillar of Witness" should stand forth com- 
 plete in all its grand proportions and all its 
 wondrous symbols at the very time at which the 
 Pleiades shone upon its summit — when its up- 
 lifted finger would point to the centre of the 
 universe — to the throne of the Eternal. * 
 
 This movement of all the star-galaxies round 
 one central point has been questioned. It would 
 not be consistent with the design of this work 
 to enter upon a discussion of theories on this 
 or any other astronomical question. Kant first 
 asserted the idea of a resemblance to our solar 
 system in the movement of the stellar system. 
 
 * But by the retardation in the rising of the stars, al- 
 ready explained, or precessional cycle, it can easily be told 
 when the Pleiades were on the meridian at midnight in 
 Eo^ypt. For we know that those soflly-beaming gems of 
 beauty now come to the meridian in latitude 30° the 17th 
 of November— that is, 57 days after the autumnal equinox 
 of 21st September. From the 21st to the 1st of October 
 are nine days, which, added to the 31 days of October, 
 make 40 days ; and the other 17 of November make the 57. 
 So that we know there has been a lapse of 57 days since 
 the Pleiades were on the meridian of Egypt. Now as one 
 year is to the lapse of this number of days, so is the pre- 
 cessional cycle to the lapse of years since the Pyramid was 
 built. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 181 
 
 " As the planets are kept at their proper dis- 
 tances and prevented from falling into each 
 other, or into the sun, by the centrifugal force 
 generated by their revolutions in their orbits, 
 so Kant supposed the stars to be kept apart by 
 a movement around some common center." 
 " This theory of the stellar system, with some 
 modifications, has been very generally held un- 
 til the present time.^' * 
 
 It was objected that the stars remained fixed 
 from generation to generation, and therefore 
 could not be in motion round a common center. 
 To this Kant replied that the time of revolution 
 was so long and the motion so slow that it was 
 not perceptible with our imperfect means of ob- 
 servation. The distinguished German astrono- 
 mer who has confirmed the sublime theory of 
 Kant, has also claimed the discovery of that 
 center of the universe, and found it to be Alcy- 
 
 ^ one (or e Tauri), the central star of the Pleiades. 
 But apart from this seemingly demonstrated 
 
 -^ fact that Alcyone in the Pleiades is the center, 
 the Pretorium of the starry host, the other fact is 
 unquestionable — that when the Pleiades crossed 
 the meridian above the pole at midnight, 2170 years 
 / before Christ, Alpha Draconis, or the Dragon 
 star, was crossing helow the pole. It was in the 
 autumn season of that one year when the me- 
 ridian of the equinoxial point coincided with 
 
 * Newcomb's Astronomy, p. 471. 
 
182 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 tlie Pleiades. It was, according to the usage of 
 early times, the beginning of the year. It was, 
 therefore, ihe year of the Pleiades, when they 
 commenced that grand cycle which measures 
 25,827 years, that the Dragon star gleamed from 
 below the pole down the descending passage of 
 the Pyramid into the pit ; while the ceutral star 
 of the Pleiades shone in soft splendor upon its 
 lofty summit; the descending passage pointed 
 to the Dragon; the summit, like an index finger, 
 pointed to the center of the universe. 
 
 Monarch of all that human hands have reared, 
 oldest and grandest thing that man has made, 
 what are we to think of it ? 
 
 But thou, of Altars old or Temples new, 
 
 Standest alone, none like to thee ; for what could be 
 
 Worthier of God, the holy and the true, 
 
 Of human structures to His honor reared, 
 
 Of a sublimer aspect ! Majesty, 
 
 Strength, wisdom, grandeur — all are aisled 
 
 In this Eternal Ark of beauty undefiled. 
 
 ■jawil-iilli&WS&iitiitiisWli 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE CAP STONE AND CORNER STONE. 
 
 WE have gazed on the Pyramid in all its 
 vastness, resting on its rocky bluff, on 
 the borders of the desert, and looking 
 over on the ancient land of Egypt — an altar to 
 the Lord in the land of Egypt and a pillar 
 thereof — a sign and a witness unto the Lord. 
 We have entered its mysterious passages, and 
 passed into its corridors, ante-rooms and royal 
 chamber, tracing the symbols shaped in almost 
 every stone. We return to the exterior. There 
 it stands on a bed-rock whose depth has never 
 been reached. What a type of the rock of 
 ages, on which Christ's people are built ? The 
 foundation standeth sure, firm as the everlast- 
 ing hills. On this firm foundation rests the 
 imperishable building reared of massive stones. 
 What a type of the building of God through 
 the Spirit, of living stones, reared by His own 
 hand and placed iu the spiritual house by His 
 mighty power ! 
 The chief corner in this form of building is 
 ^ the ca'p stone, the head of the structure. In no 
 other kind of building could the corner stone 
 be the head, or cap stone. To this form of 
 building with such cap stone, reference is evi- 
 
 183 
 
184 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 dently made in such portions of Scripture as 
 " The stone which the builders refused is become 
 the head of the corner."* The head stone of the 
 lofty corner — or apex of the Great Pyramid, 
 must be in shape a pyramid itself. The whole 
 structure, too, must be built with a view to this 
 corner. It may be said to have been built up 
 into this corner stone, as God^s people are said 
 to be built up into Christ. It is different from 
 any other stone in the building. These were 
 square or cubical, or at least with rectangular 
 corners. This single one had all its angles 
 acute — all sharp points. It might well, therefore, 
 be to the workmen a stone of stumbling. "Who- 
 ever fell on it should be broken" (or cut). "On 
 whomsoever it fell, (from that immense height) 
 it will grind them to powder." This top stone 
 or cap stone, the head of the corner, could be- 
 long to a pyramid only. 
 
 This form of building, therefore, must have 
 been before the mind of the inspired men who 
 used this imagery to represent Christ. He is 
 the foundation rock. He is the head of the 
 corner. The crown and climax, the first and 
 the last, the Alpha and Omega. " Jesus Christ 
 being the chief corner stone ; in whom the 
 whole building fitly frame together groweth 
 unto a holy temple in the Lord." f 
 
 * Ps. 118 : 22. 
 t Eph. 2 : 21. 
 
THE GREA T P YRA MID. 1 85 
 
 The cap-stone is not now crowning that au- 
 gust edifice. And so Christ is not now the 
 recognized Lord of earth. Satan is " the prince 
 of this world — the spirit that now worketh in 
 the children of disobedience." But 
 
 " He whose car the winds are, and the clouds 
 The dust that waits upon his sultry march. 
 When sin hath moved Him anrl His wrath is hot, 
 Shall visit earth in mercy— shall descend. 
 Propitious in His chariot, paved with love. 
 And what His wrath hath blasted and defaced 
 For man's Offense, shall witli a smile jepair." 
 
 For the cap-stone shall be brought 
 forth with shoutings of grace — grace 
 
 UNTO IT. 
 
 IS 
 
" NOW 'TIS MINE." 
 
 " 1 asked of Time : ' To whom arose this high 
 Majestic pile, here mouldering in decay ?' 
 He answered not, but swifter sped his way. 
 With ceaseless pinions winnowing the sky. 
 
 To Fame I turned : " fSpeak thou, whose sons defy 
 The waste of years, and deathless works essay !" 
 She heaved a sigh, as one to grief a prey, 
 And silent, downward cast her mournful eye. 
 
 Onward I passed, but sad and thoughtful grown ; 
 When, stern in aspect, o'er the ruined shrine, 
 I saw Oblivion stalk from stone to stone. 
 
 * Dread Power ! " I cried, " tell me, whose vast design—" 
 He checked my further speech, in sullen tone : 
 " Whose once it was, I care not ; now 'tis mine." 
 
 186 
 
PART III. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 ^l»i^li.il^m1Kl^^^t!alkJi»^i 
 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 I. 
 
 MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 The base of the Pyramid covers 13 J square acres. 
 
 The lenofth of a base side is 9131 Pyramid inches. 
 
 TheA'ertical height is 5813 Pyramid inches. (484) feet. 
 
 Solid contents of the Pyramid 10,340,000 cubits. 
 
 The mouth of the entrance passage is, above the 
 ground 50 feet. 
 
 Entrance east of the center 25 feet 
 
 Height of Doorway 47.24 inches. 
 
 Breadth " 41.56 inches. 
 
 Dips at an angle of. 26028' 
 
 Subterranean Roclc Chamber, below the center of the 
 base 100 feet. 
 
 Subterranean Bock Cliamber is .46 feet long. 
 
 " " " 28 feet broad. 
 
 Ascendinsj passage leading from the entrance to the 
 Grand Gallery, has its junction with the entrance 
 passage at the distance from its mouth of 
 about 988 inches. 
 
 Height of passage 47.24 inches. 
 
 Breadth " 41.56 inches. 
 
 Elevation " 26 degrees. 
 
 Southward up the first ascending passage to the com- 
 mencement of the Grand Gallery is 1542.4 inches. 
 
 The floor length of Grand Gallery from north begin- 
 ning to its southern terminus is 1881.6 inches. 
 
 Height of Grand Gallery-. 339.5 inches. 
 
 189 
 
190 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 Height of the door at the north end of Grand Gallery 
 is 53 inches. 
 
 Door at the south end leading to the ante-cham- 
 ber 43^ inches. 
 
 From the beginning of the Grand Gallery floor to the 
 well called Souterrain, is 33 inches. 
 
 The southern wall of the Grand Gallery impends 1 degree. 
 
 Length of Grand Gallery midway between floor and 
 roof 1878.4 inches. 
 
 Number of roof stones to this gallery 36 
 
 " overlapping stones on side walls 7 
 
 Cubical contents of Grand Gallery 36,000,000 inches. 
 
 Strange exit from the upper corner of Grand Gallery, 
 above floor 28 feet. 
 
 Length of short passage leading from the Grand Gal- 
 lery to the ante-chamber is 52.5 inches. 
 
 Length of ante-chamber 116.26 inches. 
 
 Breadth from east to west ..65 inches. 
 
 The height 149 inches. 
 
 Thickness of Wall of passage-way between ante and 
 King's Chamber 100 inches. 
 
 Length of King's Chamber... 412 inches. 
 
 Breadth " " 206 inches. 
 
 Height " " 230 inches. 
 
 Masonry shielding King's Chamber from outside heat 
 or cold 180 feet. 
 
 Temperature of King's Chamber 50 degrees. 
 
 Courses of masonry from base of Pyramid to King's 
 Chamber 50 
 
 Wall courses of granite in King's Chamber 5 
 
 Height of first four courses 4 feet 
 
 Fifth and lower one sinks one-tenth below floor. 
 
 Outside length of Coffer in King's Chamber 90.01 in. 
 
 " depth " " " 41.27 
 
 " breadth " " " 38.65 
 
II. 
 
 HAVE NOT THE MEASURES GIVEN IN THIS WORK 
 BEEN CONTRADICTED? 
 
 / I \HE question which we have placed as a 
 
 i caption to this article must be answered 
 
 in the affirmative. But in thus answering 
 
 it, another must be asked — What force is there 
 
 in such contradictions ? 
 
 The measures of Col. Howard Yyse were ta- 
 ken with a care and precision which could not 
 fail to approximate exactness. He spent months 
 of time and a moderate fortune in his investiga- 
 tions at the Pyramid. His measures in the main 
 agreed with the old Oxford professor who care- 
 fully measured the passages and chambers of 
 the Pyramid two hundred years before him. 
 Vyse's measures agreed also, with few errors 
 on one side or the other, with those of the 
 Prench engineers who accompanied Napoleon 
 into Egypt. 
 
 With these and other measures before his 
 eyes, Piazzi Smyth, a practical astronomer, 
 whose life had been spent in the observation of 
 star transits, and in measuring lines and angles, 
 spent four months in measuring and remeasur- 
 ing these same basic and other lines and inner 
 passages of the Pyramid. He had instruments 
 made for this express purpose — iron rods which 
 
 191 
 
192 
 
 THE GREA T P YRAMID. 
 
 could be pushed through slides and measured 
 with scarce a possibility of error. As an exam- 
 ple of his usual method we give his measure of 
 the inside of the coffer. It will be observed 
 that he measured the width, first at the top, 
 then a little lower, and so down to the bottom, 
 so as to find the least deviation caused by any 
 unevenness in the sides. So of the depth — 
 measuring at different distances from the ends. 
 
 INSIDE DEPTH OF COFFER. 
 
 " The measure of this element is taken from 
 the inside bottom of the coffer — which is appa- 
 rently smooth and flat — up in the shortest line 
 to the level of the original top surface of the 
 north, the east, and the south sides ; and of the 
 west side also, presumably^ before it was cut 
 down to the level of the ledge which runs round 
 the inner edges of the north, east, and south 
 sides, and all across the west side's top. 
 
 Part of length where observa- 
 tions were taken . 
 
 Part of breadth where observa- 
 tions were taken. 
 
 Inches south of inner N. end. 
 
 Near 
 Eabt 
 side. 
 
 Near 
 middle 
 
 Near 
 
 West 
 side. 
 
 Mean at 
 ench part 
 of length. 
 
 0-6 
 
 30 
 
 5-0 
 100 
 240 
 
 Mean at each part of breadth 
 
 34-30 
 34 44 
 34-42 
 34-40 
 34-36 
 
 34-28 
 34-36 
 34-41 
 34-38 
 31-38 
 
 34 26 
 34-35 
 34-28 
 34 28 
 34-26 
 
 34-28 
 34-38 
 34-37 
 34-;i5 
 34-33 
 
 34-38 
 
 34-36 
 
 34-29 
 
 84-34 
 
 General mean or Inside dei 
 of coffer - - - 
 
 oth) =34-34 British inches. 
 S — 34- 31 Pyramid inches. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 193 
 
 The following, from Smyth^s "Life and Work 
 at the Great Pyramid,'^ shows the difficulties to 
 be overcome in getting its accurate measures, 
 and the almost absolute certainty of the results : 
 
 " This vessel, the sole contents of the dark 
 King's Chamber, and termed, according to va- 
 rious writers, stone box, granite chest, lidless 
 vessel, porphyry vase, black marble sarcopha- 
 gus, and coffer — is composed, as to its material, 
 of a darkish variety of red, and possibly syen- 
 itic, granite. And there is no difficulty in seeing 
 this; for although the ancient polished sides 
 have long since acquired a deep chocolate hue, 
 there are such numerous chips effected on all 
 the edges in recent years, that the component 
 crystals, quartz, mica, and felspar, may be seen 
 ( by the light of a good candle) even brilliantly. 
 
 "The vessel is chipped around, or along, every 
 line or edge of bottom, sides, and top ; and at 
 its south-east corner the extra accumulation of 
 chippings extends to a breaking away of nearly 
 half its height from the top downwards. It is, 
 moreover, tilted up at its south end by a black 
 jasper pebble, about 1-5 inch high ( such pebbles 
 are found abundantly on the desert hills outside 
 and west of the Great Pyramid), recently pushed 
 in underneath the south-east corner. The vessel 
 is therefore in a state of strain, aggravated by 
 the depth to which the vertical sides have been 
 broken down as above ; and great care must be 
 taken in outside measures, not to be misled by 
 the space between some parts of the bottom 
 
194 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 and the floor, itself also of polished red gran- 
 ite." 
 
 These measures, let it be observed, agree 
 within a fraction with those taken by Ool. Yyse 
 in 1837, and by Professor Greaves two hundred 
 years earlier, and have been confirmed by J. A. 
 Grant, a resident of Cairo, and Mr. Waynman 
 Dixon, a distinguished civil engineer. 
 
 Over against all this is the statement of Mr. 
 McGarvey, a theological teacher in Lexington, 
 Kentucky, who recently visited the Eastern 
 Lands, and has published a very interesting 
 book of his travels and studies called " Bible 
 Lands.'' 
 
 He spent some two hours at the Pyramid 
 viewing its exterior, ascending to its summit 
 and examining its interior. A very brief time 
 of course could be given to each part, and 
 the examination must have been very super- 
 ficial. 
 
 He had a " tape line " with him and measured 
 as he hurried along. His account of this is inter- 
 esting. He says of the entrance passage : 
 
 " Our only mode of descending would be to 
 slide down and butt our brains oat at the bottom, 
 or to have a rope tied at the outside to which we 
 could hold as we descended, but for the fact 
 that notches have been chiseled in the floor at 
 equal intervals to furnish a foot-rest. These 
 were so rudely cut that our boots were contin- 
 ually slipping on them, and but for the help of 
 the Arabs, whose bare feet seemed to stick to the 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 195 
 
 stones as if they were glued to it, we should 
 have at last drifted into the sliding method 
 above mentioned. With two Arabs to help 
 each of us, and one apiece to hold a candle be- 
 fore us, we managed to get along without breaks 
 or bruises, but to take accurate measurements 
 under these circumstances required some 
 patience, and much straining of our muscles. 
 (Very probable, although he says nothing about 
 the strain on his tape-line ! ) Here I note the 
 first serious inaccuracy of measurement given in 
 the little book of Mr. Seiss' called a Miracle in 
 Stone, He gives the length of this chamber 
 (p. 84: ) as 1000 inches, which equals 83 feet 4 
 inches. I am certain it is several yards longer 
 than this." 
 
 Now in the first place Mr. Seiss never made 
 any measurements — never even visited the 
 Pyramid, and is guilty of no "serious inaccuracy." 
 He simply gives in round numbers the scien- 
 tifically-ascertained measurements of Greaves, 
 Jomard (the French savant,) Col. Yyse, Piazzi 
 Smyth, the astronomer, and Petrie and Dixon, 
 civil engineers. These men measured foot by 
 foot, repeating in some instances the operation 
 a number of times. And they all give nearly 
 the same result — the average being 988 inches. 
 
 But Mr. McGarvey, with no engineering pre- 
 tensions, for whose accuracy no man of sense 
 would vouch, while straining his muscle and 
 held up by Arabs, brought out a measure 
 
196 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 SEVERAL YARDS greater than those pains-taking, 
 scientific astronomers or engineers. 
 
 A difference in fractions of an inch, as occurs 
 in the different scientific measurements, is ac- 
 counted for by heat, pressure, and the possible 
 slip of the carefully adjusted iron rod; but how 
 shall we account for a difference of several 
 whole yards in his, Mr. McGarvey's, great feat 
 of measuring whUe held up by two Arabs, and 
 in a painful strain of his muscles. 
 
 This writer also gives a further account of 
 his entry into the King's Chamber and his tape- 
 line measures of the coffer. 
 
 " When we entered the King's Chamber, our 
 Arahs^ whose noise had been already very an- 
 noying, set up such a Babel of loud talking and 
 quarreling with one another, that we could have 
 no conversation. Every one wanted to magnify 
 his own importance by telling what we already 
 knew, and he was equally anxious to push his 
 neighbor into the background so as to get all 
 the hacJcskish to himself. I finally succeeded, 
 by yelling louder than all of them together, in 
 bringing them to silence, and posting four of 
 the candle-bearers near the four corners, while 
 a fifth candle was held near us to throw a light 
 on our measures ( certainly very much needed). 
 We first measured the coffer, or stone cof&n, on 
 the west end of the room, and the only movable 
 object in the chamber. We found its measure- 
 ment exactly [of course, and if so the only exact 
 one ever made of itj 6 feet 6 inches in length, 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID, 197 
 
 2 feet 2^ inches in width, and 2 feet 8 inches in 
 depth. These figures show that its interior cu- 
 bit capacity is exactly 6,144 inches, whereas 
 Mr. Seiss, in making it appear that its capacity 
 is the same as that of the ark of the covenant 
 made by Moses, represents it 9,250 inches." 
 
 We may repeat the remark that Mr. Seiss 
 made no measures; he simply quoted those 
 made by the practical engineers whose names 
 we have given. But with these Mr. McGarvey, 
 tape-line in hand, after some fifteen minutes in 
 the chamber, amid the yelling of the Arabs, and 
 with nothing but a candle ''to throw light on his 
 measures," joins issue. His tape-line measure 
 under the candle-light, however hurriedly made, 
 is exact. Theirs, though carefully repeated day 
 after day, with sliders made for the purpose, 
 and steel hoops to fasten them to the edge, 
 counting to the hundredth of an inch — though 
 tested two hundred years apart and re-tested by 
 civil engineers again and again — cannot stand 
 a moment before Mr. McGarvey^s tape-line. 
 
 For instance, he says the depth is 2 feet 8 
 
 inches = 32 inches. Compare this with — 
 
 Professor Greaves 1638 34.3 
 
 Dr. Wilson 1805 34.5 
 
 Howard Vyse 1837 34.4 
 
 Piazzi Smyth 1867 34^ 
 
 This last measure was a three days' work, 
 after the coffer had been swept out and then 
 washed and sponged with soap and water. It 
 was done with all the allowances for the loss of 
 
198 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 part of the west side of the original size — un- 
 known to Mr. McGarvey with his tape-line and 
 candle. It was done under the full blaze of 
 light illuminating the coffer, with no one to dis- 
 turb. 
 
III. 
 
 LETTER FROM THE ASTRONOMER ROYAL FOR 
 SCOTLAND. 
 
 15 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh, ) 
 
 May 4, 1882. j 
 
 Dear Mrs. S. R. Ford: 
 
 Your very interesting letter of last month has 
 just arrived, with your several Mms., including, 
 not least, the grand testimonial to your worthy 
 husband^s Pyramid Lecture. 
 
 You ask me some crucial questions, but pre- 
 fix them by far too high an estimate of the little 
 I know and can say about the Great Pyramid; 
 for I know only, as a practical measurer, certain 
 facts of number, weight and measure ; but the 
 interpretation thereof may be destined to fall 
 into far better hands. 
 
 These are no secrets, no mysteries ; imperfec- 
 tions of mine unfortunately too many; — but 
 within their limits of error, there are the ipsis- 
 sima verha of the ancient architect, in the shape 
 of the forms and sizes of the stones he was 
 Divinely inspired to introduce. 
 
 Now of those, and what he constructed with 
 them, you desire to know about the grand gal- 
 lery, so-called ; — better as you call it the Gos- 
 pel Gallery. 
 
 It is not a simple, unique length ; there are 
 
 199 
 
200 
 
 THE GREAT PYRAMID, 
 
 three lengths, as intended by the Inspired Arch- 
 itect, and made to be so by the manner in which 
 he has introduced the great step, at the upper, 
 or farther, or southern end of the gallery. 
 
 First, the shortest possible length for gallery 
 is thus : 
 
 1813 + 68.6 = 1881.6 
 By measuring through the step in line of floor produced. 
 Second, the next shortest : 
 
 1813 -f 70.8 = 1883.8 
 By measuring through step to corner of floor. 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID, 201 
 
 Third — The longest. 
 
 1813 4- 36 + 61 == 
 
 By nietisuiiiig over surface of step. 
 
 Any one of these mdicates that the time of 
 the next great measurement of the Divine Ruler 
 of the world and men is so near that we ought 
 all to be never more watchful than now, for the 
 rapture of the saint, — but need not expect the 
 whole and final appearance of the Second Com- 
 ing of Our Lord before all men, in power and in 
 anger too, at this very instant. There is a little 
 more time left still for repentance ; but let no 
 one presume how long ; nor be disturbed at the 
 events still to take place before that consumma- 
 tion arrives. 
 
 Meanwhile the dead-alive condition of Turkey, 
 the persecutions and atrocities of Eussiahs 
 against God's people, the Jews, the rise of a new 
 life in Egypt within the last few months, are all 
 in the right direction, and bewilder the oldest 
 diplomatic statesmen, who have gone on hith- 
 erto well enough, they think, without God in all 
 their worldly calculations. 
 
 I remain, yours, respectfully, 
 ±4- 0. PiAzzi Smyth. 
 
ly. 
 
 DID THE CAPHTORIM BUILD THE GREAT 
 * PYRAMID ? 
 
 WHILE profane history gives no record 
 of the origin of Egypt as a nation, the 
 Bible sheds a gleam of light on its es- 
 tablishment, and points, as no tradition does, to 
 the men who built the Great Pyramid. 
 
 Egypt is called to this day Mazr by the na- 
 tives — a name most evidently derived from 
 Mizraim, grandson of Noah. The fragments of 
 Egyptian history which have come down to us, 
 when stripped of fable, ascribe the establish- 
 ment of its first monarchy to Mizraim in the 
 year of the world 1816. Now we read (Gen. 10) 
 that Mizraim was the son of Ham. " And Miz- 
 raim begat Pathrusim, from whom came Caph- 
 torim ; " and the very region in which the Great 
 Pyramid stands was called Caphtor. Let this 
 remarkable passage in Deut. 2:23 be noticed. 
 God, encouraging Moses in view of the terrible 
 enemies before him, tells him, " The Caphtorim 
 which came out of Caphtor destroyed them (the 
 Avim ) and dwelt in their stead.'''' And in Amos 
 9:7, " Have I not brought up Israel out of the 
 land of Egypt and the Philistines from Caphtor V 
 The Philistines were Caphtorim. God did 
 not permit them to be destroyed with the Ca- 
 naanites. Caphtor was that part of Egypt 
 where those Caphtorim lived. 
 
 SOS 
 
THE GREAT PYRAMID. 203 
 
 This passing notice of the founders of pre- 
 historic empires, shows that Mizraim founded 
 the Egyptian monarchy; that his grandson, 
 Oaphtor, succeeded him, or at least held such 
 position as to give name to the region where 
 the Pyramid stands ; and that his descendants 
 were driven from Egypt. Their sojourn in 
 Egypt is termed by Manetho an irruption. And 
 Wilkinson (Yol. 1., p. 38 ) says : " From the pre- 
 ceding extracts of Manetho, as from other pas- 
 sages in his work, it appears reasonable to con- 
 clude that Egypt was, at one time, invaded and 
 occupied by a powerful Asiatic people who held 
 the country in subjection; and viceroys being- 
 appointed to govern it, these obtained the names 
 of Pastors, or Shepherd Kings." 
 
 As it is now ascertained that the pyramids 
 were built 2170 years before Christ, it is almost 
 certain that these Shepherd Kings, or Caphto- 
 rim, built the Pyramids before the Pharaohs 
 grasped the reins of government, and before 
 the inhabitants became idolatrous and were bru- 
 talized by the most abominable superstitions. 
 Herodotus was told by the priests that these 
 men built the Pyramid, and that they went up 
 to Canaan, and built the City of Jerusalem. 
 How all this agrees with the reference to these 
 Caphtorim ! 
 
XaXDC l9.ao.— An altar to / ^ 'r J^ ^^ » ^ IN THE MIDST OF EaYEt* 
 
 Thh Great Pyramid. Built, 22170 B- C 
 
 ^MffD'PVRAMta. 
 
 SFCQKD PYBAIUOU 
 
V. 
 
 INDICATIONS ON THE DIAaRAM. 
 
 A, A, A, A, Corner sockets of tlie Pyramid's base. 
 
 B, B, B, Pyramid cut in half, viewed from the east. 
 
 C, C, C, Entrance passaoe. 
 
 D, D, First ascending passage. 
 
 E, E, E, The well. 
 
 F, The subterranean chamber. 
 
 G, G, G, Kative rock, left standing. 
 
 H, Horizontal passage to Queen's Chamber. 
 
 I, Sabbatic or Queen's Ciiamber. 
 
 J, Grand niche in Queen's Chamber. 
 
 K, K, Ventilating tubes to Queen's Chamber. 
 
 L, Grand Gallery. 
 
 M, M, M, Rampstones, incisions, and vertical settings 
 along the sides of Grand Gallery's base. 
 
 N, Great step at south end of Grand Gallery. 
 
 O, Granite leaf in anteroom to Kirig's Chamber. 
 
 P, P, Anteroom to King's Chamber. 
 
 Q, King's t^hamber. 
 
 R, Grand Coffer in King's Chamber. 
 
 S. S, S, S, S, Chambers of construction. 
 
 T, T, Ventilating tubes to King's Chamber. 
 
 U, Supposed undiscovered Chamber. 
 
 V, V, Cartouches of the Kings, Shufu and Nem-Shufu, 
 otherwise called Cheops or Suphis, and Sen-Suphis, or 
 Noh-Suphis, under whose co-regency the Great Pyramid 
 was built. 
 
 W, W, Sections of next two pyramids, showing their in- 
 terior openings, 
 
 X, X, Al Mamoun's forced passage. 
 
 Y, Time-marks of the building of the pyramid. 
 
 Z, Z, Z, Z, Casing stones, now. gone. 
 
 205 
 
VI. 
 
 DR. PHILLIP SCHAFF'S OBJECTION. 
 
 IN bis excellent book, '• Travels in Egypt 
 and the Holy Land," Dr. Phillip Schaff, 
 after noticing very fairly Piazzi Smyth's 
 measurements of the Great Pyramid and his 
 deductions therefrom, asks, "If this was the 
 design of the Pyramid, why is it not mentioned 
 in the Bible?" 
 
 But it is mentioned by Job. And then the 
 theory of Smyth is based on the fact that this 
 mighty pillar is for a coming age — for the day 
 when Egypt is " to cry unto the Lord." Schaff 
 alludes to this wonderful prophecy in Isa. 19 : 
 19. *' In that day shall there be an altar in the 
 midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the 
 border thereof, and it shall be for a sign and 
 for a witness unto the Lord in the land of 
 Egypt." This, says Dr. Schaff, refers to a 
 future event. Grranted : but that future event 
 is the witness it is to give — not its beginning or 
 erection ! This Pyramid has stood in its solemn 
 grandeur through the ages — silent, objectless. 
 It is now bearing record, as even skeptics and 
 evolutionists are forced to admit. It does 
 stand in the midst of the fan-shaped land of 
 Egypt, and yet is on the border thereof. It is 
 the only spot on which a pillar could stand and 
 
 20G 
 
THE GREA T P VRAM ID. 207 
 
 meet the demands of the passage — "in the 
 midst of the land of Egypt and on the border 
 thereof.'' So it is mentioned in the Bible. 
 
 But this learned writer asks, as others have, 
 " Why all this symbolism confined to this one 
 Pyramid % " But there is the fact — %t is con- 
 fined to it. There is no high science — no star 
 pointing — no inner passages in any Pyramid but 
 this. It stands alone in its marvelous disclos- 
 ures, all the other pyramids being blundering 
 imitations of this perfect Pyramid. 
 
 Why, then, it is again asked, was all this evi- 
 dence of lofty intellect in those who built it — 
 all this symbolism of the exact sciences, and of 
 the dispensations of God, hidden so long from 
 the knowledge of men — why left to this age to 
 be uncovered and recognized *? 
 
 The answer is on the surface. The Pyramid 
 was reared in that early age as a memorial and 
 a witness, which should disclose its long-hidden 
 evidence in an age of scientific atheism and 
 general apostasy. " In that day, it shall be 
 for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord in 
 the Land of Egypt, for they shall cry unto the 
 Lord, and He shall send them a savior." Egypt 
 is still under the heel of the oppressor; is still 
 wrapped in darkness ; she is not yet relieved 
 from the curse pronounced upon her for her 
 sins ; she is still without God. But the oracle 
 which pronounced her long night of oppression, 
 also foretells her return to the Lord. And in 
 that day shall this column of witness testify 
 
208 THE GREAT PYRAMID. 
 
 unto the Lord in the land of Egypt. Not till now 
 have the wonders of the Pyramid been disclosed, 
 and that disclosure is attracting the world, and 
 scientific atheists stand dumb before its testi- 
 mony for God. i- 
 
 Were the ruins of the Ark found amid the 
 snows of Ararat, and measured and identified, 
 it would be no greater proof of the origin of 
 the race and the truth of the Bible, than is this 
 voiceful monument " in the midst of the land of 
 Egypt and on the border thereof." 
 
 Dr. Schafi*, after describing with enthusiastic 
 eloquence the view from the summit of the 
 Great Pyramid, describes his descent and ascent 
 through the inner openings or passages. " We 
 came out covered with dust and perspiration, 
 glad to reach the sunlight and open air." 
 
 As Dr. Schaff left them and hailed the sun- 
 light and the breeze r^must he not have been 
 struck with the thought, that the men who built 
 this massive pillar had some object in construct- 
 ing those recesses with such consummate skill 
 and finish ^ What is that object % No meaning 
 was ever depicted there — no idolatrous design 
 mars their simple beauty. But their measure- 
 ments and simple beauty do most accurately 
 symbolize the event of the race— the revelation 
 of the righteousness of faith through the atone- 
 ment of Christ ! 
 
 ■'^ /5^7