584 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF FACTS. 



most civilized people among whom animal- 

 worship vigorously survives lie within the 

 range of Brahmanism. Here the sacred cow 

 is not merely to be spared ; she is as a deity 

 worshiped and bowed to daily by the pious 

 Hindoo. Siva is incarnate in Hanuman, the 

 monkey god. The divine king of birds, Gar- 

 uda, is Vishnu's vehicle, and the forms of fish 

 and boar and tortoise assumed in the avatar 

 legends of Vishnu. Perhaps no worship has 

 prevailed more widely than that of the serpent. 

 It had its place in Egypt and among the He- 

 brews ; in Greece and Rome ; among the Celts 

 and Scandinavians in Europe ; in Persia and In- 

 dia; in China and Thibet; in Mexicoand Pern ; 

 in Africa, where it still flourishes as the state 

 religion in Dahomey ; in Java and Ceylon ; 

 among the Fijians and elsewhere in Oceanica ; 

 and even within the limits of Christianity we 

 find the sect of the Ophites, who continued or 

 renewed snake-worship, blended curiously 

 with purer rites. 



Pyramids. The weight of authority 

 among modern Egyptologists inclines to the 

 view that the Pyramids were a new and bold 

 architectural type, invented in its entirety be- 

 tween the fifth and twelfth dynasties, in Mid- 

 dle Egypt, and not the development from 

 earlier forms of tomb-mounds. "Pyramid," 

 in its strict geometrical sense, denotes a build- 

 ing having a polygonal base, and plain triangu- 

 lar sides which meet in an apex. There are 

 various forms of ancient tomb-mounds of 

 earth and stone and stepped structures, as the 

 mastaba in Egypt, and early temples and mau- 

 solea in Mexico and Assyria, and there are 

 also some inferior imitations of later date ; 

 but the true pyramidal construction ie seen 

 only in Egypt, and comprises about seventy 

 structures on the banks of the Nile, none of 

 which are later than the twelfth dynasty (about 

 2000 B. C.). They are all built upon a square 

 base, with the four sides facing the four cardi- 

 nal points of the compass, and in the earlier 

 forms are composed of horizontal layers of 

 rough-hewn blocks with a small amount of 

 mortar degenerating in the buildings of the 

 sixth and succeeding dynasties to a cellular 

 system of retaining walls filled with loose 

 chips, and finally, in the twelfth dynasty, to a 

 mass of mud bricks. But there was, in all 

 cases, on the outside, a casing of fine stone, 

 beautifully polished and jointed, the inner 

 chambers having a similar finish. These casing 

 stones were not a mere veneer or film, but were 

 massive blocks, usually greater in thickness 

 than in height. Inside of each pyramid, al- 

 ways low down, and usually beneath the level 

 of the ground, was built a sepulchral chamber, 

 and this was reached by a downward passage 



from the north side. This passage had a 

 lesser chamber in its course, and was blocked 



! once or of tener with a massive stone portcullis. 

 The interior was probably in every case acces- 

 sible to the priests. for the purpose of making 

 offerings, the passageway being closed by a 



j stone door turning on a horizontal pivot, the 

 location of which was known to them. The 

 chambers were always roofed by great sloping 



! cantalevers of stone projecting from the north 

 and south sides, on which they rested without 

 pressing on each other along the central ridge, 

 so that there was no thrust, nor indeed any 

 force to disturb the buildings ; and now, after 

 a lapse of four thousand years, in spite of the 

 brutal treatment of enemies and the greed of 

 later builders (who have removed almost all of 

 the casing stones), they still stand as colossal 

 monuments of the work of man. Owing to 



; the loss of the casing stones, their present ap- 

 pearance presents a series of huge, rough steps, 

 and their height has been considerably dimin- 

 ished by the encroachment of the sand of the 

 desert around their bases. Many archa.'olo- 



| gists believe these vast piles, especially the 

 great Pyramid of Cheops at Gizeh, to have 

 been constructed under divine inspiration, and 

 to embody in the living rock great astronom- 

 ical facts and mathematical principles, and 

 memorials of a system of weights and meas- 

 ures for universal use. It is also maintained 



I that Masonic emblems and symbols have been 

 found within them. Whatever the builders 

 embodied in the details of their construction, 

 their immediate object and use was undoubt- 

 edly to serve as royal mausolea. As for these 

 theories, future investigations will probably 

 develop or explode them ; but that there is 

 great mathematical knowledge and wonderful 

 accui-acy of measurement displayed in them is 

 well established. In the great Pyramid at 

 Gizeh, the four sides have a mean error of 

 only six tenths of an inch, and twelve seconds 

 in angle from a perfect square. This pyramid 

 is the largest of all, and by far the most re- 

 markable in its construction. It is somewhat 

 different from the others in its internal ar- 

 rangement, having the subterranean chamber, 

 which is but half finished, and having also an 

 upward passage leading to two large upper 

 chambers, highly finished with great slabs of 

 polished red granite. Probably both of these 

 chambers contained originally a polished sar- 

 cophagus of the same Syenitic granite ; and 

 the larger one the " King's " although in 



I the very heart of this huge pile, is perfectly 

 ventilated by two air passages about nine 

 inches square, which run to the north and 

 south faces of the Pyramid. It was built by 

 Cheops or Khufu of the fifth dynasty, and its 



