, 1877-12-09
rEE EEY yo THE UNIVERSE.

THE KEY TO TIE UNIVERSE.
Various speculations hive been made ~
scientific men with reference to the Greht
Pyramid of Gizeh; and their principal con
clusions have recently been collnted and pub
ushed in book-form by the Rev. JOSEPH a.
Sr1ss, of Philadelphia. He does not claim
high degree of merit for his work; most OF
his facts and figures have been drawn from
other authorities, and he has not verified
them all By rigid processes. lie IS 1nchned
also to give equal Importance to tho deduc-
tions which rest upon unquest1oned premises
and to those which are merely entertaining
because they confirm, or seem to conhrn,
tho truth of revealed religion But the CO.
incidences between the proportions OF tho
pyramid and certain units Of measurement
in the natural world are so striking, aud they
have been SO attcsted, TINT they are en-
titled to the attention of enlightened people.
Tho symbolism of the Great Pyramid must
alyays remain more or less subject OF
speculation it may, or may not, have fore
shadowed tho history of the chosen people,
the story of Abraham, Isaac, and jacob, ana
tbs advent of the Messiah upon the earts';
uay uaye pointed backward to the Hood,
and forward to tho millennium, for all We
know TO the contrary. These are secrets
| which the pyramid has entombod more COM
! pletcly than the bones or the treasures OF its
founders But the mathematical properties OF
the building, and their relation to solar and
terrestrial distances, are more easily ascer-
| tanned. When tried BY. the appliances OF
| modern science and established by the most
exact methods, they suggest a degree OF
| knowledge among prehistoric men which Is
h1,niliating to onr pride and ought to DO
encouraging to our industry
The Great Pyramid is the only one thn! is
supposed to possess peculiar scientific sig
nifcanco. It stands about ten miles west OF
Cairo. aud at the centre Of the arc described
| by the shoye-liue drawn about the mouths of
t the Nile. It is at once the Oldest and the
| largest building in the world Covering thlr-
| teen acres Of ground, or about four ordinary
city blocks, towering As feet above the sur
| rounding country, and containing gigantic
| blocks of stone, which no machinery known
| in our day could lift in position-it is, in its
simple presence, eloquent testimony to
| the intelligence and industry of the
race that constructed it. The moro
it is examined the grander and
more mysterious it appears. The circle
which is described with its perpendicular as
o radius indicates the mathematical idea Of
| the building, the circumference being the
| loucth of the four sides Of the square base-
| The elifce thus accomplishes practical
squaring of the circle, according to Alr
SE1ss, The quality OF fveness is strongly
marked in the pran.id- It has five sides and
five corners. The first interior chamber is
! five times FIVE myers Of masonry from the
base, and the second chamber. i've times five
layers from tho first. The measures Of both
chambers answer to standard OF tive
times fye, or ten times five, inches. Tbe
| granite Golfer in The Kings chamber hos five
solid external sides, aud IS contained IN
the chamber just ten by five times. This
| intense fveness is preserved even In the
| word pyramid, which is derived from the
Coptic ryr, meaning DIVISION" and met,
"ten." Nine is another number chnracter-
istic Of the pyramid. At high noon the sun
shines on ell five Of its corners and four OF
its sides, counting nine Of its essential parts
Its practical shaping is nine to ten. For
avery ten feet thnt its corners retrcnt dag
ouallv inwarls in the process Of building
they rise upward or sunwerd nine feet.
These may be called condolences rather
curious than valuable but the samc cannot
be said Of the relation which the height OF
the pyramid bears to most lnl-
portant astronomical measurement. Th1r-
ty feet of the original building has
been destroyed. Supposing this to be restored,
its height would be 4sS feet. This number
multiplied by ten to the ninth power gives
the mcan distnnce of the sun from the earth,
that is 100000 900 times the pyramld's s
height, or 91,S40, 600 miles. The sun-dls-
tance used to be put down at 9G,000,o oou
miles. Later observations reduced the limit
of uncertainty to between 91,0oo.o00 and
93, ,0oo, 900, and the transit of Venus in 1871
confirmed tho lower figures, making the limit
between 9l,000,oO0 and 92,500, 600. The
mean of the estimates is very near
the approximation arrived at by the
multiplication OF the perpentncuiaf
of the pyramid. Still more wonderful
is the proportion sustained between
the base-line and tho sc,ni-diamcter OF
the earth The French derive their unit OF
measure, the metre, from the quadrant OF
the enrth's circumference, supposing this to
be divided into ten million parts, one o1
which, would be the length of the metre.
But, in consequence Of the impossibility OF
reducing q curved line to straight one, and
some errors of calculation, they did not
reach m exact result. Tho better measure
would have been semi-tlamoter of the
earth, which can be ascertained more easily
because it is straight line. 1t has been
found TINT the ten-1nillionth part of this
semi i-diametcris 2;,. O25 inches, which is exact
II the old sacred cubit. The length Of eithe1
of the Great Pyramids four sides is q frac
ton over 7614 feet. or nearly one-seventh O.
q mile In this distance the sacred cubit j:
contained 365t times-jus! as many times u
there ere days in the year. The intention
evidently was to epitomize ct once tht
earth's diu1nal and yearly motion md th'
length of its axis as shorter expression O
the other two forms. In this connection Mr.