an aliquot part of the earth's supposed diameter, so as to afford an invariable standard. But there is no positive proof of this from the pyramid itself, the dimensions of which may be expressed just as well in the ordinary working cubit, and it must remain open to doubt whether the coincidences prove the pyramid inch, or the inch was invented to prove the coincidences. Assuming, however, for the moment that these measures were really used, some of the coincidences are very remarkable. The length of each side of the square base is 365-1/4 of these sacred cubits, or equal to the length of the year in days. The height is 5819 inches, and the sun's distance from the earth, taken at 91,840,000 miles, which is very nearly correct, is just 5819 thousand millions of such inches. It has been thought, therefore, that this height was intended to symbolize the sun's distance. But independently of the fact that this distance could not have been known with any approach to accuracy before the invention of the telescope, it is forgotten that this height had been already determined by a totally unconnected consideration, viz. the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference. The coincidence, therefore, of the sun's distance must be purely accidental. A still more startling coincidence has been found in the fact that the two diagonals of the base contain 25,824 pyramid inches, or almost exactly the number of years in the precessional period. This also must be accidental, for the number of inches in the diagonals follows as a matter of course from the sides being taken at 365-1/4 cubits, corresponding to the length of the year; and there can be no connection between this and the precession of the equinoxes, which, moreover, was unknown in the astronomy of the ancient world until it was discovered in the time of the Ptolemies by Hipparchus. But with all these doubtful coincidences, and the many others which have been discovered by devotees of the pyramid religion, quite enough remains to justify the conclusion that between 5000 and 6000 years ago there were astronomers, mathematicians, and architects in Egypt, who had carried their respective sciences to a high degree of perfection corresponding to that shown by their engineers and artists.