﻿APPENDIX. 479 



is. What the intention of these extraordinary columns 

 may have been originally, is perhaps not so easy to 

 tell : at first sight it would seem that they were for 

 holding inscriptions, because those or Betttah, Dehli, 

 and lllahabad, have inscriptions (though in a cha- 

 racter that has not been yet deciphered); but the 

 pillar of Singeah seems to have none whatever, for 

 some Bramins told me they attended at the time it h as 

 dug to the foundation, near twenty tee: under ground, 

 by a gentleman of 'Patna, who had hopes to have 

 found some treasures; and that there were not the 

 least vestige of any inscription upon it. Probably 

 those pillars, Cleopatra's Needle, and the DeviTs Bolts, 

 at Bo rough bridge, may all have the same religious 



origin. 



Perhaps the connection of time and place may apo- 

 logize for the diversity of the subject, in mentioning, 

 that while I sat under the shade of a large tree near 

 the pyramid, on account of the sultry hear, some of 

 the people of the adjacent village came and played 

 there with cowries on a diagram, that was formed 

 by placing five points in a circular order, and joining 

 every pair of alternate points by a line, which formed 

 a kind of pentagon ; this brought to my recollection 

 a circumstance told me by a gentleman in England, — 

 That an old piece of silver plate had been dug out of 

 the earth with such a figure upon it ; the use of it was 

 totally unknown, as well as rhe age ; and I was de- 

 sired to find what geometrical properties the figure 

 possessed. One, I remember, was, that if any number 

 of points whatever were placed in a circular order, and 

 each two alternate points joined, then the sum of all 

 the salient angles of the figure would be equa to two 

 right angles when the number of points was odd ; 

 but equal to four right angles when the number was 

 even. Euclid's properties of the angles of the triangle 

 and trapezium, are particular cases of theses but I had. 



