428 A Century of Science 



gical purposes. But what say the pyramid cranks, 

 or " pyramidalists," as they have been called ? 



According to them, the builders of the Great 

 Pyramid were supernaturally instructed, probably 

 by Melchizedek, King of Salem. Thus they were 

 enabled to place it in latitude 30 N. ; to make its 

 four sides face the cardinal points ; to adopt the 

 sacred cubit, or one twenty millionth part of the 

 earth's polar axis, as their unit of length; " and to 

 make the side of the square base equal to just so 

 many of these sacred cubits as there are days and 

 parts of a day in a year. They were further by 

 supernatural help enabled to square the circle, and 

 symbolized their victory over this problem by mak- 

 ing the pyramid's height bear to the perimeter of 

 the base the ratio which the radius of a circle 

 bears to the circumference." 1 In like manner, by 

 immediate divine revelation, the builders of the 

 pyramid were instructed as to the exact shape and 

 density of the earth, the sun's distance, the preces- 

 sion of the equinoxes, etc., so that their figures on 

 all these subjects were more accurate than any 

 that modern science has obtained, and these figures 

 they built into the pyramid. They also built into 

 it the divinely revealed and everlasting standards 

 of "length, area, capacity, weight, density, heat, 



1 Proctor, The Great Pyramid, p. 43. 



