224 Epidemics. 



that, in giving measurements for his new Temple, the 

 standard of measurement is altered to nearly the pyramidical 

 standard of 25, or rather 25 J inches; and it is not im- 

 probable, when greater care has been bestowed upon these 

 measurements, the real standard of the cubic and hand- 

 breadth will give us exactly 25 inches. 



From observing the nearer approximation to the pyra- 

 midical standard in Ezekiel's cubit to the old standard 

 cubit, it is inferred that whilst a captive in Chaldea he had 

 found a more fixed and precise standard used by the itine- 

 rant Masons, who carried on the most important works 

 in those days, requiring the skill alike of the mason, the 

 smith, and the carpenter. These would be the same order 

 of men of whom Hiram of Tyre was chief at the time of the 

 building of Solomon's Temple. This cubit or measurement 

 Ezekiel was divinely taught to use in giving the measure- 

 ments of his new Temple a measure which was probably 

 the standard when Hiram quarried, and sent to Jerusalem, 

 ready dressed and proportioned, all the stones which, fitted 

 together, made a perfect whole, without the sound of chisel 

 or hammer, and without the need of trowel and plaster or 

 cement, as was the case in the building of Solomon's Temple. 



Hence, though the builders of the Great Pyramid are not 

 believed to have been divinely inspired to make a standard 

 of weight, nor for the central coffer a standard of measure, 

 yet it is recognized as that standard which was divinely 

 approved of in the Temple measurements given by Ezekiel. 



But this standard, it is inferred, was known and in use in 

 Babylon as much as it had been in Egypt in remote ages. 



And how are we to explain it ? Simply that the long, 

 careful, and assiduous attention given to the movements of 

 the heavenly bodies, but, above all, to the action of the sun's 

 rays during the axoidal or diurnal motion of the earth, led 

 to certain and precise notions as to the length of the earth's 



