OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. 675 



We can hardly, therefore, do otherwise than conchide, if the supposition of a 

 "lucky accident" be afterwards shown improbable, that the standard of length 

 ( = 5005 English inches nearly) in use at the Pyramid was, and was intended to 

 be, in linear value = ^^ ^J.^^^^,^ of the earth's axis of rotation; and it is even further 

 identified with the Pyramid in this manner: — 



Mr Taylor has pointed out that there are reasons for concluding that inches 

 were in use at the building of the Pyramid, and that these inches were slightly 

 larger than ours, so that 500,000,000 of them measured the earth's axis of rota- 

 tion precisely. 



Now in the Pyramid, a body mathematically with 5 sides and 5 angles, every- 

 thing may be expected to go by fives ; and, accordingly, the inch, the unit of 

 linear measure, is the one 5-hundred-millionth of the earth's axis of rotation. 



The grand linear standard, — for scientific formative purposes, or those wherein 

 the earth has to be alluded to as a whole, — and which we propose to call the 

 "metron," viz. the ^-^th of the double base, and the one ten-millionth part of the 

 same axis, contains 5 times 10 units. 



The smaller standard, — for convenient use, and for distance-measuring, wherein 

 the half only of the earth requires to be referred to, because distances should be 

 reckoned from the centre, and not either the nearer or further, surface of a 

 sphere,— is ^l^t\\ of one side of the base ; contains 5 times 5 units, and is the 

 one ten-millionth of the earth's radius of rotation. While if a foot do not contain 

 any even number of fives, it likewise is not any integral fraction of the earth's 

 axis of rotation, is not a scientific standard, and, though tolerated in the base, 

 has not been allowed to enter into any of the interior arrangements of the Pyramid. 



(3.) Figure of the Earth. 



If anything further could add weight to the belief of the polar diameter of 

 the earth, so clearly hit by the actual measures of the double base-breadth, having 

 been intentionally referred to for the linear unit of the Pyramid, it might well be the 

 finding that certain other diameters are indicated in the building, and a knowledge 

 of the full figure of the earth, with a purpose, thereby manifested. 



Without having speculated originally about any such idea, something of the 

 sort appeared spontaneously to me, when engaged in testing two " size-analogies," 

 j which Mr Taylor pubUshed for the second time in 1863, in his " Battle of the 

 ; Standards." They had been examined by Sir J. Herschel in 1859 or 1860, and 

 1 declared by him, in the Athenaeum of 1860 for April, to be the only cases he then 

 knew of, where a relation had been made out between the size of the Pyramid 

 and that of the Earth ; but he intimated that they were only rudely approximate. 

 By aid, however, of the conclusions deduced from the base of the Pyramid in our 

 last section, we can employ improved values, because the original ones, for both 

 height and base, and therewith repeat the calculation under more favourable cir- 

 cumstances. 



VOL. XXm. PART III. 8 T 



