1 87 1.] The Great Pyramid in Egypt. 207 



thies throughout all post-diluvian ages, " the leader of the 

 heavenly host " to the ancient Hindoos, and the type of 

 Halcyon, i.e., Alcyone-led, days to the classic peoples of 

 Europe, viz., the Pleiades. Yes, indeed, no other star-group 

 than the Pleiades, and at a distance then, as little removed 

 from the equator as was a Draconis from the pole. 



That typical polar distance has already been stated as 3 42'; 

 now the same star is 25 away; and the difference, or 21 18', 

 exhibits something of the grand scale on which "Precession" 

 allows the time elapsed to be computed ; though for the 

 further and best method we must rather look to what takes 

 place simultaneously on the equator. 



The moment, too, that we do look there, behold! there was 

 something else on the meridian simultaneously with the 

 Pleiades and a Draconis, viz., no less admirably suited and 

 most rare a phenomenon,— for it occurs only once in 

 25,000 years, — than the vernal equinox. So that the 

 Pyramid's precessional interval in chronology is measured 

 off, on no accidental part of the general circumference, but 

 from the very time-zero of the chief time-circle in the sky, 

 viz., from one of the equator's intersections with the plane 

 of the Ecliptic. 4040 years ago the stars of that vernal 

 equinox, viz., then the Pleiades and their enclosing constel- 

 lation Taurus, crossed the meridian at midnight, in the 

 autumn portion of the year, say, on the 22nd of September. 

 Now, the same stars are not seen in a similar position until 

 the 19th of November : wherefore the number of days 

 elapsed from Sept. 22nd to Nov. 19th, at the approximate 

 precessional (really recession of the equinoxes) rate, of 70 

 years to a day, gives at once the absolute date of the 

 Great Pyramid we are searching for. The only absolute 

 date, too, that has yet been discovered in any of the early 

 monuments of the Egyptian land, and where, as well as in 

 all that concerns the early history of man, it is so much 

 required. 



Most remarkably and completely, therefore, is the Great 

 Pyramid, by the facts of its primitive construction, the 

 special monument of "the Pleaides year;" wherein the year 

 begins on that night when the Pleiades " are most visible," 

 i.e., when they are seen uninterruptedly from sun-set to 

 sun-rise, and that is again, when they cross the meridian 

 at midnight. An inimitable primeval method of measuring 

 time over long intervals is thus procured, and which the 

 researches, chiefly of Mr. R. G. Haliburton, of Halifax, 

 Nova Scotia (its modern discoverer it may be said), have 

 tended to show was universal among mankind before they 



