PYRACANTHA 



PYRAMID 



503 



Members ' whom Charles singled out by name. On 

 the breaking out of hostilities he remained at his 

 post in London, and there, in the exercise of the 

 functions of the executive, rendered services to 

 the cause not less valuable and essential than those 

 of a general in the field. While the strife was yet 

 j>ending he died, through the breaking of an inter- 

 nal abscess, at Derby House on 8th December 

 1643, having only the month before been appointed 

 to the important post of Lieutenant of the Ord- 

 nance. ' King Pym ' was buried in Westminster 

 Abbey with great pomp and magnificence, but at 

 the Restoration his remains were cast out into a 

 pit in St Margaret's churchyard. 



'The most popular man," says Clarendon, 'and 

 the most able to do hurt that hath lived in any 

 time.' And such Pym was, only emphasis ought 

 to be laid upon the ' able. ' He was no demagogue, 

 no revolutionist, as neither was he a narrow pre- 

 cisian. His intellect, on the contrary, was ' in- 

 tensely conservative,' in Mr Gardiner's phrase ; he 

 was a champion of what he believed to be the 

 ancient constitution against those who he thought 

 were striving to subvert it. He was, moreover, an 

 English country gentleman, who liked the good 

 things of this life, and was not so circumspect in 

 his conduct but what scandal made free with his 

 name, asserting, for instance, that ' Master Pym 

 had succeeded the Earl of St ration 1 in the affections 

 of my lady Carlisle." 



See John Forter"s Eminent British Statesmen (voL iii. 

 1837) ; Goldwin Smith's Three English Statesmen ( 1867) ; 

 and other works cited at CiiARLES I ., ELIOT ( SIR JOHN ), 

 and STBAFFORD. 



Pyracantha. See 



Pyramid, in Geometry, is a solid figure, of 

 which the base is a plane rectilinear figure, and 

 the sides are triangles, converging to a point at the 

 top or 'apex.' Pyramids, like prisms, are named 

 from the form of their bases : thus, a pyramid 

 having a triangle for its base is a triangular pyra- 

 mid, with a square base, a square pyramid, with 

 any four-sided figure for its base, a quadrangular 

 pyramid ; or it may be pentagonal, hexagonal, &c. 

 Pyramids may be either 'right' or 'oblique' (see 

 PRISM }. A right pyramid, with an equilateral 

 figure for its base, has all its sloping edges equal ; 

 but this is not the case if the pyramid be oblique. 

 The most remarkable property of the pyramid is 

 that its volume is exactly one third of that of a 

 prism having the same base and vertical height ; 

 and it follows from this that all pyramids having 

 the same base and height are equal to one another. 

 The word (Gr. pyramis) is of Egyptian origin. 



Pyramid, a structure of the shape of the geo- 

 metric figure so called, erected in different parts of 

 the Old and New World, the most important being 

 the Pyramids of Egypt, which were reckoned among 

 the seven wonders of the world. They are al>out 

 seventy-five in number, of different sizes, situated 

 chiefly between 29 and 30 N. lat., and are masses 

 of stone (or rarely brick), with square bases and 

 triangular sides. Although various opinions have 

 prevailed as to their use, as that they were erected 

 for astrological, astronomical, and rnetrological pur- 

 poses, for resisting the encroachment of the sand 

 of the desert, for granaries, reservoirs, &c., there 

 is no doubt that they were really nothing more 

 than the tombs of monarchs of Egypt who flourished 

 from the first to the twelfth dynasty. With the 

 exception of some very late pyramids in Nubia, 

 none were constructed after the twelfth dynasty ; 

 the later kings were buried at Ahydos, Thebes, 

 and other places, in tomlw of a totally different 

 construction. The pyramids of Egypt may be 

 descrilied as monuments built over the sepulchral 

 chambers of kings. The Egyptian monarch was 



ever careful to prepare his ' eternal abode." For 

 this purpose a shaft of the size of the intended 

 sarcophagus was first hollowed in the rock at an 

 incline suitable for lowering the coffin, and at a 

 convenient depth a rectangular chamber was ex- 

 cavated in the solid rock. Over this chamber a 

 cubical mass of masonry of square blocks was then 

 placed, leaving the orifice of the shaft open. Addi- 

 tions continued to be made to this cubical mass 

 both in height and breadth as long as the monarch 

 lived, so that at his death all that remained to be 

 done was to face and smooth the exterior of the 

 step-formed mound by adding courses of long blocks 

 on each layer of the steps, and then cutting the 

 whole to a flat or even surface. This outer 

 masonry or casing has in most instances been 

 stripped off. Provision was made for protecting 

 the vertical joints by placing each stone half-way 

 over another. The masonry is admirably finished ; 

 and the mechanical means by which such immense 

 masses of stone were raised to their places must 

 have been powerful and elaborate. The finer 

 stones were quarried at Tura and other places on 

 the opposite bank of the Nile ; sometimes, how- 

 ever, granite taken from the quarries of Syene was 

 employed for the casing. The entrances were 

 carefully filled up, and the passage protected by 

 stone portcullises and other contrivances, to pre- 

 vent ingress to the sepulchral chamber. The sides 

 of the pyramids face the cardinal points, and the 

 entrances face the north. The most remarkable 

 and finest pyramids are those of Gizeh (GSza), 



Section of Great Pyramid of Gizeh: 



A, B, entrance passages ; F, Queen's Chamber ; D, King's 



Chamber ; O, well ; B, subterranean apartment 



situated on the edge of the Libyan Desert, near 

 Memphis, on the west bank of the Nile. Of the 

 three largest and most famous the First or Great 

 Pyramid was the sepulchre of Chufu, the second 

 king of the fourth dynasty ( 3733-3666 B.C. accord- 

 ing to Brugsch). Chufu is the Cheops of Hero- 

 dotus, the Cliembis or Chemmis of Diodorus, and 

 the Suphis of Manetho. Its height was originally 

 481 feet, and its base 774 feet square ; in other 

 words, it was higher than St Paul's Cathedral, 

 on an area about the size of Lincoln's Inn Fields. 

 Its slope or angle was 51 50'. It has, however, 

 been much despoiled and .stripped of its exterior 

 blocks for the building of the mosques and walls 

 of Cairo. The original sepulchral chamber, 46 

 feet x 27 feet, and 10 feet 6 inches high, was hewn 

 in the solid rock, and was reached oy a passage, 

 320 feet long, which descended to it from the 

 entrance at the foot of the pyramid. The excava- 

 tions in this direction were subsequently aban- 

 doned, and a second chamber, with a triangular 



