402 PROFESSOR C. PTAZZI SMYTH'S ACCOUNT OF 



that star was crossing the meridian below the Pole, a more important star was 

 crossing above the Pole ; and it is the manner of the Pyramid not to wear its most 

 vital truths in prominent outside positions." 



Out of that consideration seems to have come the full explanation, of which 

 the lateness of the evening prevents my doing more than briefly noticing the end, 

 — as thus — 



The more important star or star-group was, the Pleiades. 



The grand gallery with its seven overlappings and peculiar angular position, 

 is commemorative, amongst other things, of the proverbial seven stars. 



The Polar star, a Draconis, was first employed to regulate the meridian posi- 

 tion of the Pyramid ; and then, the Pleiades, at that date a nearly equatorial 

 star, was observed when on the meridian and at a high altitude, to obtain an 

 accurate instant of time. 



The epoch, was the last occasion when a Draconis was 3° 42' from the Pole or 

 in 2170 b.c ; and then, not only were the Pleiades opposite to a Draconis almost 

 exactly in Right Ascension, or crossing the Meridian above the Pole, when 

 a Draconis was crossing below the Pole ; but they, the Pleiades, were in a most 

 peculiar cosmical position, well worthy of being monumentally commemorated ; 

 for they were actually at the commencing point of all Right Ascension, or at the 

 very beginning of running that grand round of stellar chronological mensuration 

 which takes 25,868 years to return into itself again ; and has been termed else- 

 where, for reasons derived from far other studies than anything hitherto con- 

 nected with the Great Pyramid, the Great year of the Pleiades. 



If, moreover, we would desire to learn whether the founders of the Pyramid 

 really had in that early age of the world a knowledge of the entire duration of 

 so grand a cycle of time, we may seek the answer in the base of the entire monu- 

 ment ; where the sum of the two diagonals, whose equality best proves our first 

 proposition of all, or the squareness of the base, amounts, at the rate of an inch 

 for a year, to 25,836 years. 



Perhaps now some attempt to indicate who the men were who planned, or 

 under what guidance it was that they were enabled to plan in the year 2170 b.c 

 such a monument as the Great Pyramid, should follow ; but I rather imagine 

 the inquiry ought from this point to pass into other and stronger hands than 

 mine ; and I will therefore this evening, with your leave, only make one farewell 

 remark, — it is to request special attention to the radical difference between the 

 known vulgar measures of Egypt, such as they have been through all periods 

 of her history, either Ancient or Modern, — and Great Pyramid measures, as 

 illustrated in that building's carefully deposited, but long concealed, metrologi- 

 cal arrangements. Take for example the two terminations of either system. 



At one end, as the linear standard of Egypt in all time past and present, you 



