1871J The Great Pyramid in Egypt. 205 



phenomenon itself. I freely, therefore, give his conclusion the 

 preference ; and even consider his contribution thereby to 

 the astronomy of the Great Pyramid, as singularly important 

 in its way, as John Taylor's tt hypothesis has proved to be 

 for the geometry. 



And yet this pole-star-cwm-Precession theory, though so 

 admirably started, was eventually left by its brilliant author 

 only half worked out. For a Draconis was not once only, 

 but twice, in early history, at a distance of 3 42' from the 

 polar point of the sky; viz., first in 3400 B.C. (nearly), and 

 afterwards in 2170 B.C. (nearly). Wherefore all the world 

 is surely entitled to ask, which of these two occasions was 

 intended to be memorialised in the Great Pyramid ? 



At the time of Sir John Herschel's writing, viz., in 1839 

 A.D., a date of about 2100 B.C. was largely believed in as 

 that in which the Great Pyramid was really built ; so there 

 seemed nothing to be done then, but to accept the last star 

 distance, or that of 2170 B.C., as the one intended. But 

 since then, learned Egyptologists have been so perseve- 

 ringly stretching their early chronology, that the chief 

 geniuses among them, such as Bunsen, Brugsch, Lepsius, 

 Renan,andMarietteBey, are all for dates of either 3400 B.C. 

 or something earlier still. Whence it comes that the self- 

 same species of testimony which led Sir John Herschel in 

 1839 to decide for 2170 B.C., ought now to lead both him and 

 everyone else also to prefer 3400 B.C., — equally appealing 

 all the time for proof to the same polar star, a, Draconis, 

 and the same entrance passage in the Great Pyramid. 



Such, then, is the condition in which the brightest light 

 of modern astronomy left this ancient question, or with an 

 uncertainty of 1200 years (i.e., almost a quarter of the whole 

 time concerned) hanging over it. And if that were all the 

 accuracy which the primeval architect cared to reach, I, for 

 one, would cease to advocate his claims to attention from 

 the learned in the present, day. But let us try to inquire, 

 and in something of that respectful frame of mind previously 

 enlarged on as requisite, what he, the designer of the Great 

 Pyramid, thought about this matter. 



One of the very first features in Sir John Herschel's 

 theory — which I, though beginning with the utmost desire 

 to find it complete and faultless, could not admit ; i.e., after 

 I had once acquired at the Pyramid by painful daily toil 

 innumerable proofs of the wisdom, foresight, economy, and 

 constant calculation of its primeval designer — was the 

 attempt to father on such a man, and as a method in 

 chronology, the taking a transit of a polar-star ! 



