of the miracle, as cited by Rymer, it is declared that during its performance the rock cut like butter or soft mud under the stroke of Athelstane's sword. "Extrahens gladium de vagina percussit in cilicem, quae adeo penetrabilis, Dei virtute agente, fuit gladio, quasi eadem hora lapis butirum esset, vel mollis glarea; ... et usque ad presentem diem, evidens signum patet, quod Scoti, ab Anglis devicti ac subjugata; monumento tali evidenter cunctis adeuntibus demonstrante." (Foedera, tom. i. pars ii. 771.)] [Footnote 271: Elsewhere (p. 45) Mr. Taylor corroborates Sir Isaac Newton's opinion that the _working_ cubit by which the Pyramid was built was the cubit of Memphis.] [Footnote 272: The interior of any Scottish cottage, where the inside of the thatched or slated roof is left exposed by uncovered joists within, contains, on the same principle, six sides, and a seventh or the floor.] [Footnote 273: "The _clue_ was not prepared for any immediate successors of the builders, but was intended, on the contrary, to endure to a most remote period. And it has so endured and served such a purpose even down to those our own days." (Professor Smyth's _Life and Work at the Great Pyramid_, vol. i. p. 157.) "The builders, or planners rather, of the Great Pyramid, did not leave their building without sure testimony to its chief secret; for there, before the eyes of all men for ages, had existed these _two diagonal joints_ in the passage floor, pointing directly and constantly to what was concealed in the roof just opposite them, and no one ever thought of it. Practically, then, we may say with full certainty that these two floor marks were left there to guide _men_ who, it was expected, would come subsequently, earnestly desiring, on rightly-informed principles, to look for the entrance to the upper parts of the Pyramid." (Vol. i. p. 156-7.) At p. 270 Professor Smyth again alludes to this supposed mark, made up by two diagonal joints in the passage floor, as evading the notice of all visitors, except "those very few, or perhaps even that _one only man_, who had been previously instructed to look for a certain almost microscopic mark on the floor."] APPENDIX. I.--DERIVATION OF THE TERM PYRAMID. (_Page_ 219.)