After what has been said above, I need scarcely allude to the ridiculous supposition of those having been built by Joseph as granaries for his corn! Their form and construction, ill adapted to such an occasion, refutes that absurdity, as it does the derivation upon which it has been founded, viz. the _Greek_ words πυρος, wheat, and αμαω, I gather; as if, forsooth, an _Egyptian_ structure, erected before the _Greek_ language was ever known to exist, should wait for a designation until Greece should be pleased to christen it. Still more disposed must one be to discard with contempt the usual derivation given them, of πυρ, fire; as this not only labours under the weakness of the former, but betrays an ignorance of the correct idea of the Greek word πυρος, of which πυρ, fire, is the true derivation, “quia flammæ instar in _acutum_ tendit”;[177] intimating its _continually tapering_ until it ends in a _point_; whereas the top of the Egyptian _pyramids_ never does so end; that of the largest above described ending in a flat of nine stones, besides two wanting at the angles, each side of this platform being about sixteen feet; so that a considerable number of people may stand on it, and have, as from most of ours, one of the most beautiful prospects imaginable. Wilkins’s derivation from _pouro_, a king, and _misi_, a race, would seem plausible enough, being a purely Coptic or Egyptian analysis; but when we consider the general ascription of them by the people to the _shepherd Philitis_, whether as one of the _Pali_--that is, shepherds--or Uksi, which meant the same--king-shepherds above adduced; or as _emphatically the shepherd_, the son of Israel,[178] it argues a disposition on the part of the people to assign the honour--if taken in the latter light--to the workmen employed; if in the former, to a prince of a different dynasty from those whom the Egyptian priests would fain associate with them. This derivation, therefore, will not stand; and we have only to betake ourselves to the ingenious conjecture of Lacroze,[179] which, perhaps, may give more satisfaction respecting the etymology of the word _pyramid_. Lacroze derives it from the _Sanscrit term_ Biroumas, and traces an analogy between Brahma, Birma (which the Indians of Malabar pronounce Biroumas), and the word Piromis, which means the same thing, namely, a virtuous and upright character--Piromia meaning, according to him, in the language of Ceylon, man in general.