Postponing for the moment such peculiar notions as Professor Smith may entertain, we wish to draw attention to some remarkable traits in the construction of the Great Pyramid, now for the first time distinctly brought out, and of great value to all theorists, sane and insane.

1. The angle of the sides of the Great Pyramid is of precisely the amount to cause the linear proportion which twice the length of one of its sides bears to the vertical height of the whole mass, to be that of the diameter to the circle,—the constant quantity z of all modern mathematics.

2. Three trenches, which observers have always insisted were used solely for the mixing of mortar, gave Professor Smith the feeling from the beginning, that they had to do with deciding the dominant angles of the pyramid; and from his observation he proves them to be azimuth trenches, their mean determination being 51° 51′ 33′′. These trenches, then, were placed at the actual angles intentionally or unintentionally. If the former, the builders knew what remarkable property they could give to a pyramid, by constructing its slope at the critical angle of 51° 51′; " and we shall do wisely to attend with care to their other angular works." Why did not this consideration save you, O Professor! from the theory of divine inspiration and its consequences?

3. In its descending passage, the Great Pyramid is like all others; but in the ascending, indicated by the diagonals, it is unique. Of the three passages, we ought to know the inclination; but to compare the Grand Gallery with the celestial polar direction we must bore through the blocks of stone, with which it is still choked! The pyramid shows only one of the two daily meridian transits of a pole-star particularly marked, yet accounts for, or shows the direction of, the other transit, and the place of the pole as well.

4. The Great Pyramid stands ninety miles from the Red Sea, and a hundred and ten in a direct line from the Mediterranean. Its correct orientation has always been taken for granted; and we have shown how small, and perhaps intentional, our professor found the error. As regards latitude, the theoretical angle is 30°; what Piazzi Smith actually found

is 29° 58′ 51′′. Why did not the builders hit the mark a little more closely, carry it 69′′ farther north, and make it perfectly accurate? The answer to this question he finds in the topography of the region. To have carried it even this little to the north, would have taken it off a noble hill, and buried it ingloriously in a broad bay of sand. By pushing it to the extreme northern edge of the cliff,-where one landslip had already occurred, and which they were compelled to fill up with good masonry, they showed that they knew their

error.

5. A system of inclined passages in the rock north-east of the pyramid, about which there has been a good deal of speculation, our astronomer considers merely a model on which the masons tried their hand, to work out the internal figures of the pyramid, as the azimuth trenches had worked out the external angles. That part of the actual pyramid which was cut in the rock has suffered more from time than that part which is made of masonry. As to any changes produced by time, six different subjects of observation, including the geological strata, combine to show a southward dip. It is only about 32", however, -hardly worth noting. A shining, curly, white, moss-like excrescence, appearing in the Grand Gallery and queen's chamber, proves to be common salt.

6. Taylor taught us to look at the internal axis of the earth's rotation, which he estimated at five hundred millions of inches, for the builder's measure, this statement being defended and enforced by Sir John Herschel. Taylor took Newton's sacred cubit, a measure always employed by the Hebrews for sacred purposes, - twenty-five inches long. The modern French metre was chosen as the one ten-millionth of a quadrant of a particular meridian of the earth. The sacred cubit was the one ten-millionth of half the earth's axis of rotation,also a useful measure, close on the length of the human arm and the human pace; and of these cubits there are as many contained in one side of the pyramid's base, as there are days in the year! Here is the pyramid linear measure:

The cubic contents of the great coffer have been elsewhere shown to be equal to one Hebrew laver, or one English chaldron. Now for the measure of weight. A cubic measure being formed, with sides of a ten-millionth of the earth's axis of rotation, a tenth part of this space is to be filled with matter of the specific density of the earth. This mass will form the weight standard. The coffer measure puts the mean density at 5.70.

7. Decimal measures are everywhere indicated, and show the coffer to be intentionally what it is, thinks our professor. Four vertical grooves divide the entrance wall of the king's chamber into five parts. The coffer, whose capacity is also that ascribed to the Ark of the Covenant, is founded on a fifty-inch measure, the one ten-millionth of the earth's axis of rotation. It stands in a room carefully divided by five equal courses of stone; a thing not to be done in that hard material without extreme care. By the position of the floor on the lower course, the room becomes a measure of the same capacity as Solomon's molten sea, fifty times that of the coffer, fifty and five are the ruling numbers. Then again the king's chamber holds an unexpected relation to the whole pyramid. The fiftieth course of stone in the pyramid is identical with the floor of that chamber. On it stands the coffer of fifty inches standard, in its tank of fifty times itself, with walls of five courses; and, if that coffer's contents of water be divided by fifty times fifty, we get the pyramid pound, scientifically checked all the world over as five cubic inches of the earth's mean density! We agree with our professor, that, if this is all accurate and all accidental, it is very bewildering.

He goes on to show that the ventilators were constructed so as to create a mean temperature of what he calls one-fifth. Now, whereas the king's chamber has a relation to a measure of fives and fifties, so the queen's chamber has a similar

relation to a standard of twenty-five; and the subterranean chamber was equally a chamber of angular measure. By calculations concerning the latter, which our readers would not care to follow, our professor gets a compass with divisions of fives, which he thinks the sailors would be grateful for! In the seven-sided crystalline form of the queen's chamber, his peculiar notions lead him to find an index of the sabbatical week; and he somewhere quotes our much-maligned Bunsen in his own support. If figures were ever "off on a strike," we think they would have refused to contribute to such a result!

The third volumé contains an interesting but contemptuous account of the labors of Mahmoud Bey, alluded to in our article on Bunsen. It seems to trouble our astronomer a good deal, that he cannot criticise the excellence of Mahmoud's mathematical work.

In his speculative advances, Smith makes a queer choice of authorities; and, whenever he brings up a peculiarly obscure name, he shows his real respect for Bunsen, by reporting what good thing the baron credited to it! If a third of the time spent on the building of this pyramid was spent, as Herodotus says, in subterranean work, then our professor is sure that we shall yet see the inside of an undiscovered chamber, in which will be works of the magnificent diorite, whose splinters strike through the embankment. No man knows where this diorite came from; no one has ever reported it in situ.

Professor Smith treats us, in closing, to Haliburton's "Essay on the Pleiades." All nations, he thinks, once had a year of pleiads, before the rise of the great heathen civilizations, and in which is the explanation of the old festival of Hallowe'en. This year began with the autumnal equinox, "the mothernight of the year." But, for all this, he must needs borrow of Bunsen the very star-maps and charts Professor Heiss prepared for him! One thing he has decided,- that the Dog-star shall not rule the pyramid. Those who know what good work is, however, will always value Professor Smith's second volume, and turn from his third to Bunsen's noble five, with ever-fresh delight.

ART. V. THE FOURTH GOSPEL AND ITS AUTHOR.

An Attempt to ascertain the Character of the Fourth Gospel, especially in relation to the First Three. By JOHN JAMES TAYLER, B.A., Member of the Historico-Theological Society of Leipsic, and Principal of Manchester New College, London. Williams & Nordgate, 14, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London; 1867.

AN able and friendly writer in the "London Spectator" (April 20, 1867) closes his examination of this work, after repeatedly expressing his high esteem for the author's accurate knowledge and perfect fairness, with these words: "Mr. Tayler's learned, lucid, and candid book has tended to confirm, instead of to shake, our conviction of the authenticity of the fourth Gospel."

Such also has been the case with ourselves. Mr. Tayler calls his book, "An Attempt to ascertain the Character of the Fourth Gospel." But it is not so much an examination, as an argument. We can already see, in the first chapter, the result to which the writer has come. The book is a fair and honest attempt to disprove the apostolic authorship and authority of the Gospel.

Mr. Tayler first describes the evident difference between the three Synoptic Gospels and the fourth, as regards the scene of Christ's labors, the form of his teachings, the events mentioned, and the resulting view of the character of Christ himself. He thinks that John's Gospel is not so much another as a different Gospel from those of the Synoptics. Considering it impossible that the fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse should have been written by the same author, he decides in favor of the authenticity of the latter. The notices of the Apostle John in Scripture and ecclesiastical tradition, show, in Mr. Tayler's opinion, that John belonged to the Jewish section of the Christian Church; to which, plainly, the author of the fourth Gospel does not belong. The external testimonies