London Philosophical Society. 147 



the chamber of Osiris-Bacchus, and the Sarcophagus it- 

 self, Pausanias informs us that the Image of Bacchus was 

 found in a Chest which was said to be the gift of Vulcan — 

 that Vulcan of whom the Pyramid was a symbol — that 

 Chest of which theSarcophagus was a model —that Bacchus 

 to whom the central room was certainly devoted. Finally, 

 to complete the evidence, for it is impossible to turn with- 

 out finding so n-.any proofs as can scarcely be condensed 

 into two Lectures, we hear from Plutarch, that on the 

 third day after Osiris had been deposited in his Ark, during 

 wliich time he was supposed to have descended into Hades, 

 (the lower hemisphere of the astronomers,') ihe'y opened it, 

 and brought forth a Heifer to the people as the Deity r&stored 

 lo life. Now the larnous manuscript of Denon represents 

 the exact point of time. The Sarcophagus on which the 

 Heifer rises, is evidently the mystical tomb of Osiris, from 

 the prostrate figure on the side and the triune symbol above ; 

 and it certainiy agrees with the figure of the pyramidal Ark. 

 i shall add, by way of corollary to this evidence, that the 

 Hebrew word Pyraniidn signifies a revelation of the Heifer, 

 'as we'i as of Perfection, or of Fire. 



"To proceed : The under room, still'bearing the name of 

 the Queen's chamber, was devoted to the mysteries of Isis ; 

 for that goddess bore the name of the Queen among the 

 Eeyptians. {Diodoru'; Siculus.) With regard to the niche in 

 I his room, it u as probably devoted to a statue of Isis Multi- 

 niammia^ or the same triformed goddess exhibited at Eleu- 

 sis. Maillet pretends that the mummy of a dead queen was 

 deposited here. But I put it to the candour of antiquarians, 

 whether, if I had stated that in the very same monument, 

 and almost at the same time, the Egyptians, so tenacious as 

 they were of invariable customs, so tenacious indeed that, 

 even while they knew as much of the principles of statuary 

 as the Greeks, they sacrificed the truth of proportion and of 

 nature to the standard of monastic prescription, — that these 

 priests should in one instance deposit the body horizontally, 

 and in another perpendicularly, they would not have con- 

 ceived it ail insult on their understandings ? 



"To return from this digression, however, it must have 

 been in the two first passages that the Aspirant was ter- 

 rified and l)L'wildired by the ihckering lights, the groans, 

 the cries, and the howhngS of dogs. It was tliere, possibly, 

 that a hundred terrible shadows, disgorged IVom the mouth 

 of the well or trom the groito beneath, surrounded him with 

 indescribable terrors. And hero, were I desired to account 

 for the holes in the centra! room, one of which extends to 

 K2 the 



