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mentioned by Procopius, of which he was himself an eye-witness, Druidism does not appear to have been extinct in Gaul before the sixth or seventh century; which fact was, that Theodebert I. having penetrated into Italy at the head of a considerable army, and taken possession of the bridge of Pavia, his men offered in sacrifice the wives and children of the Goths. "For," says this Procopius," the Franks, though Christians, do still observe a great many of their ancient superstitions. They offer up human victims, and use many execrable rites in their auguries."

* In Univ. Hist. vol. vii. p. 365.

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ON THE

ORIGIN AND DESIGN

OF THE

PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT AND THE ROUND TOWERS OF IRELAND.

WELL-KNOWN as these stupendous monuments of antiquity are to the learned and scientificsince this work may fall into the hands of such as may not form a just conception of their structure -we shall present the reader with a representation of them as given us by M. Rollin, taken from Herodotus and Pliny, &c. amongst the ancients. "A pyramid," says he, " is a solid or hollow body, having a large and generaliy a square base, and terminating in a point." Of the pyramids of Egypt one was more famous than the rest. It "was built on a rock, having a square base, cut on the outside as so many steps, and decreasing gradually quite to the summit. It was built with stones of a prodigious size, the least of which were thirty feet, wrought with wonderful art, and covered with hieroglyphics. According to several

ancient authors, each side was eight hundred feet broad, and as many high. The summit of the pyramid, which to those who viewed it from below seemed a point, was a fine platform, composed of ten or twelve massy stones, and each side of that platform sixteen or eighteen feet long. An hundred thousand men were constantly employed about this work, and were relieved every three months by the same number. Ten complete years were spent in hewing out the stones, either in Arabia or Ethiopia, and in conveying them to Egypt; and twenty years more in building this immense edifice, the inside of which contained numberless rooms and apartments. There was expressed on the pyramid, in Egyptian characters, the sums it cost only in garlick, leeks, onions, and the like, for the workmen; and the whole amounted to sixteen hundred talents of silver"-413,3331. 68. 8d. sterling, according to the authors of the Universal History,-" from whence it was easy to conjecture what a vast sum the whole must have amounted to." Thus far Rollin. This pyramid, according to Pliny, occupied eight acres of land, and modern travellers say eleven. Herodotus says, that there were subterraneous apartments belonging to it; and another thing remarkable concerning it is, that "the sides of it stand exactly facing the four quarters of the world, and that the tomb, so called, within is in the same position."

66

Concerning the interior of this pyramid, the authors of "the Ancient Universal History" give us a particular account. They speak of an entrance of very long galleries-chambers-antechambers-closets-passages-benches-square holes-and many parts as most curiously wrought, and of rich materials, such as white and smooth and polished marble. And, in the midst of the pyramid, they say, there is a magnificent and spacious chamber, as it were in its heart and centre, equidistant from all the sides, and almost in the midst, between the basis and the top. The floor, the sides, and the roof of it are all made of vast and exquisite tables of Thebaic marble, which, if they were not obscured by the smoke of torches, would appear glittering and shining. From the top of it descending to the bottom, there are about six ranges of stone, all which being respectively sized to an equal height, very gracefully in one and the same altitude run round the room. The stones which cover this chamber are of a stupendous length, like so many huge beams lying flat and traversing the room, and withal supporting that infinite mass and weight of the pyramid above. Of these there are nine, which cover the roof; two of them are less by half in breadth than the rest, the one at the east end, the other at the west. The length of the chamber on the south side, most accurately taken at the joist or line where the first and second row of stones meet, is

34.380* English feet; the breadth of the west side, at the joist or line where the first and second row of stones meet, is 17.190 feet, and the height 19 feet and a half."

"Within this glorious room," add they, "stand the monument of Cheops, or Chemmis, of one piece of marble, hollow within, uncovered at the top, and sounding like a bell.” "Some write that the body has been removed hence, but it has been already observed, that the founder was not buried in it. This monument is of the same kind of stone with which the whole room is lined, being a speckled marble, with black, white, and red spots, as it were equally mixed, which some call Thebaic marble." "The figure of the tomb is like an altar, or two cubes finely set together: it is cut smooth and plain without any sculpture or engraving. The outward superfices is in length 7 feet 3 inches and a half, and in depth 3 feet 3 inches and three-quarters. The hollow side is in length, on the west side, 6,488 feet; in breadth, at the north end, 2,218 feet; and in depth 2,800 feet. It stands exactly in the meridian, or due north and south, and as it were equidistant from all sides of the chamber, except the east, from whence it is doubly remoter than from the west. Under it there is a little hollow space dug away, and a large stone in the pavement removed at the angle

* Rather more than 344 feet, for it is reckoned by decimals.

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