■2 1 i Dr. Arnott on the Proportions of the Pyramids of Egypt. 



\§th January, 1848. — T)\e President in the Chair. 



The following members were elected : — Messrs. James Hudson, Ph. D., 

 John Knox, John Smith. 



Mr. Stenhouse described some proximate principles of lichens, and 

 exhibited specimens. 



The following paper was read : — 



XXXIII. — Notes on the Proportions of tJte Pyramids of Egypt. By G. 

 A. Walker Arnott, LL.D., Regius Professor of Botany. 



Perhaps there are no monuments of antiquity that have created such 

 general interest as the pyramids of Egypt, enumerated by some among 

 the seven wonders of the world ; and although much has been written on 

 the subject, it must be confessed that, at the present day, we have no 

 sufficient evidence, indeed, nothing but conjectures, either of the era in 

 which they were erected, or of the specific purposes for which they were 

 built, any more than we have of the kind of machines by which the 

 enormous stones were piled together. Some trace them to a period 

 coeval with, or antecedent to, Moses ; others refer them to a much more 

 modern age. Some consider them merely as the splendid mausolea of 

 the Egyptian kings ; others as having been primarily devoted to the reli- 

 gious rites and ceremonies practised by the priests ; and as in those days 

 all branches of literature and science were confined to the priests, or to 

 such few others whom they permitted to participate in them, so we have 

 two subsidiary hypotheses ; one, that the pyramids were erected on general 

 scientific principles ; the other, solely for astronomy, with which their reli- 

 gion was intimately connected. 



About six or eight years ago, having occasion to enter upon the inves- 

 tigation of some allied topics, it therefore appeared to me that if any 

 additional light was ever to be thrown on the rise of these artificial moun- 

 tains, it might be derived from something connected with their construc- 

 tion. As the kings of Egypt had other burying-places much farther up 

 the Nile, and the bones found in the pyramids are those of a bull, I felt 

 very unwilling to give credence to that theory which viewed them only as 

 tombs ; and on the other hand, if raised for the use of the priests, as the 

 bones of the bull would imply, that animal being connected with their 

 religion, there would, in all probability, be some remarkable peculiarity 

 displayed indicative of astronomy, geometry (I use this term in its widest 

 sense), or numbers. 



The pyramids, or at least the most celebrated of them, are situated in 

 the neighbourhood of Cairo, in the lat. of 30°; and what seems to indicate 

 their astronomical character is, that the entrance is on the north side, and 

 the passage slopes downwards at an angle almost directly pointing to the 

 pole star. Belzoni states the angle to be 26°, consequently the north 



