of Edinburgh, Session 1867-68. 
363 
SIGNIFICANCE OF CYPHERS AND FIVES. 
Under the above head, p. 264, the Proceedings' author has some 
remarks as to certain persons, in their comparisons of lengths in 
the Great Pyramid, with the size of the earth, imagining “ that if 
the quantities from which the mean “25-07, ± '10 British inches,” for a new 
statement of the length of the above cubit, was derived. This final mean is 
correctly given, as intended ; so likewise are the original terms, expressed 
chiefly in Roman Uncise, in Sir Isaac Newton’s Dissertation on Cubits, 
reprinted at pp. 354-366. No important mischief therefore is likely to have 
accrued, from this error in printing one of the intermediate steps. But as 
the error is an undoubted blemish, which I much regret, have cancelled in 
the list of errata, and sincerely thank those who have called my attention t 0 
it, — I hasten to give the following discussion de novo. 
At p. 365, of Sir Isaac’s treatise above mentioned, he assumes 25f Roman 
uncise, to represent the length of the Sacred Cubit of the Hebrews, — a cubit 
which he had elsewhere shown, there were grounds for believing that that 
people possessed before they went down into Egypt, and had had specially 
brought to their attention again, for religious matters, after leaving Egypt 
under Moses. 
But Sir Isaac Newton was not at all confident of having obtained the pre- 
cise length, to the last figure put down in his arithmetical expression. And 
he particularly and almost prophetically says, — 
“ This is what I thought proper to lay down at present with regard to the 
“ magnitude of this cubit. Hereafter, perhaps those who shall view the 
sacred mount, and the monuments of the Chaldceans, by taking accurately 
“ the various dimensions of the stones, bricks, foundations, and walls, 
‘ and comparing them together, will discover something more certain and 
“ exact." 
Now what Sir Isaac laid down at that then present time, was abundantly 
sufficient for his then purpose ; or to prove, that there existed a most sensible 
and positive difference in the length of that sacred (or 25§ uncise) cubit of the 
Hebrews, — and, of the profane cubit of the Egyptians, whose length, expressed 
in the same Roman uncise, was hardly more than 21-3. And in this last 
conclusion, he is so eminently borne out by all subsequeut investigators, that 
that subject — or the length of the profane, or ancient Egyptian national cubit — 
need not be stirred again. 
But within the last few years, another, and a more refined, or a residual 
question has arisen, which apparently never crossed Sir Isaac Newton’s mind, 
viz., was the Sacred Cubit of the Hebrews, taken by itself, accurately the ten- 
millionth part of the length of the Polar semi-axis of the Earth ? And as 
this quantity in Nature, according to modern science, is something very close 
to 25-8 Roman uncise, — Sir Isaac’s determination of 25 and f, i.e., 25-6 of 
the same uncise for the Sacred Cubit, is, to say the least of it, so near — 
especially for a confessed imperfect approximation, from a portion only of the 
materials collected, — that it becomes intensely important to submit all the 
data to a more rigid scrutiny than before ; with the caution moreover in view, 
