348 London Philosophical Society. 



the outward wall, and the other to the foundations of t^c 

 Pyramids, I should answer, with very little hesitniion, thzt 

 they were devoted to secret communication, and most 

 likely to inform the assemhled priests of the exact moment 

 when ihe initiate entered the i.orth angle, or the well. I 

 consider this as a much more satisfactory and plain state- 

 ment than that of Savary, who contends ihat one oi them 

 was intended to convey food to the visionary personages 

 he here confined; for, according to his own liypolhesis, 

 it was scarcely possihle to ascend the external wall ; and 

 it rs not very probable that a set of priests, tenacious 

 to 3 refinement of their bccrets, should have suffered 

 a basket of provisions to be dangling from a height of 

 two hundred feet — a mere realization of Mother Bunch's 

 Tales, But it is the constant feature of a forced hypo- 

 thesis, thai some little difficulty is perpetually starting 

 which requires a correcting or a pruning hand. For myself, 

 thouffh I feel conscious that my powers of research ar& 

 inhmtciy inferior to those who have preceded me, yet satis- 

 fied that I have yielded every thing to fact, and nothing to 

 i!na<:ination, I am persuaded, that every candid and unpre- 

 judiced mind will submit to the weight of evidence I have 

 adduced, and parlicularly to that harmony of feature which 

 pervades and characterizes the system which I have endea- 

 voured to erect with comparatively feeble powers, but with 

 nnremittia? patience of investigation. Even the narrow 

 communication between the first and second gallery, which 

 has confounded and perplexed the opposite theorists, and 

 certainly put them to their last shiits of explanation, is to 

 ' me a matter of triumph and of aid. For 1 have only to 

 read the ordinary descriptions of travellers, and the cause 

 of it is apparent. We are compelled, they all concur, to 

 strip ourselves at this point, and to crawl upon our bellies 

 like serpents ; — and behold two accredited steps of ancient 

 initiation : for it is notorious that these actions, rendered 

 necessary by the skill of the architect, are symbolical rites, 

 rcpresentma: at once the fall of man, and his willingness to 

 return to his original simplicity and purity. Indeed, if the 

 analoffv were not so sirong as it is, we arc not deficient in 

 evidence, drawn from the cave of Trophonius, St. Patrick, 

 &c. which were built upon a similar model, that the narrow- 

 ness of the passage was intended to impress u feeling of 

 terror on the mvstic votary. I'roceeding. tlu-refurc, by the 

 same analogical clue, the concession seems as it were ex- 

 acted from us, that the five platfwrms and five galleries 

 were the inferior gates of the great Sidtireal Ladder which 



led 



