264 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
when the measurement was declared to be 9142 inches, and the 
line, not a segment of an arc of the circumference of the earth, but 
a segment of the polar axis of the earth ; for De l’Isle lauds Pane- 
ton’s meridian degree theory as one of the wondrous efforts of 
human genius, or (to use his own words) u as one of the chief works 
of the human mind!” Yet the errors into which Pancton was led 
in miscalculating the base line of the Pyramid as 8754 inches, and 
the other ways he was misled, are enough, suggests Professor Smyth, 
“ to make poor Pancton turn in his grave.” 
Significance of Cyphers and Fives. 
M. Pancton, Mr Taylor, and those who have adopted and 
followed their pyramid metrological ideas, seem to imagine that 
if, by multiplying one of their measures or objects, they can run 
the calculation out into a long tail of terminal 0’s, then something 
very exact and marvellous is proved. “ When ” (upholds Mr 
Taylor), “ we find in so complicated a series of figures as that 
which the measures of the Great Pyramid and of the Earth require 
for their expression, round numbers present themselves, or such as 
leave no remainder, we may be sure we have arrived at primitive 
measures.” But many small objects, when thus multiplied suffi- 
ciently, give equally startling strings of 0’s. Thus, if the polar axis 
of the earth be held as 500,000,000 inches, and Sir Isaac Newton’s 
“ Sacred Cubit ” be held as 24’82 inches — then the long diameter of 
the brim of the lecturer’s hat, measuring 12 , 4 inches, is 1-20, 000, 000th 
of the earth’s polar axis ; a page of the print of the Society’s Trans- 
actions is 1-60, 000, 000th of the same; a print page of Professor 
Smyth’s book, 6’2 inches in length, is 1-80, 000, 000th of this 
“ great standard ; ” &c., &c. 
Professor Smyth seems further to think that the figure or 
number “ five ” plays also a most important symbolical and inner 
part in the configuration, structure, and enumeration of the Grreat 
Pyramid. “ The pyramid ” (says he) “ embodies in a variety of 
ways the importance of five.” It is itself “ five-angled, and with its 
plane a five-sided solid, in which everything went by fives, or 
numbers of fives and powers of five.” “ With five, then, as a 
number, times of five, and powers of five, the Great Pyramid con- 
tains a mighty system of consistently subdividing large quantities 
