222 Epidemics. 



and the minus or plus be added or excluded, as certain 

 defects in the method of observation may require. 



This, then, is one reason why, in those early nations, and 

 such nations as have suffered little from the change of 

 dynasty or masters, we find handed down to their posterity 

 very fair outlines of the data arrived at for calculating 

 eclipses, and of dividing time by the year and the month 

 in ancient astronomical records, and their posterity, from 

 shortness of life, not attaining to their wisdom. 



That this may not appear absurd one further corollary 

 will be given, in the fact that in Egypt is the largest 

 building the world has seen, and probably considerably the 

 oldest. The means of acquiring correct data for calculating 

 eclipses, and the cycle of the year and the month, are given 

 in the proportions of the building itself, known as the Great 

 Pyramid ; where a correct proportional measurement of 

 the earth's diameter is found, the basis of our yard and inch 

 measure, and the key to all our astronomical measurements 

 is here preserved, as in an observatory exposed to every 

 storm, and every change of dynasty, for perhaps 4,000 years. 



Mr. John Taylor and Professor Piazzi Smyth have 

 changed this meaningless mass of masonry into a speaking 

 monument, that displays the science of the ancients as a 

 diamond in a casket of gold. 



With regard to Professor Smyth's view of its being built 

 by masons divinely inspired, and so over-riding all diffi- 

 culties, there is a very important objection, which is the 

 more unwillingly given, because it is evident that the learned 

 professor in his work* desires to honour God by ascribing 

 inspiration to the builders. To give the matter shortly, 

 the grand residuum of all is that our inch measure is in- 

 herited from and preserved in the proportions of the Great 



* " Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," by Professor C. Piazzi 

 Smyth, F.R.S.S.L.E., London, 1864. 



