I wonder why do not our _moderns_ confer these _subterraneous cruciform_ edifices upon the industry of the early Christians, as they have striven to claim for them the _corresponding_ structures _above ground_! and without half the probability of success! For if it may be stated, that the _crucifixions_ upon the _towers_ were an _interpolation_, with a view to _Christianise_ what before was devoted to _Paganism_, _no one_, at all events, would maintain that the _monks_ had gone down into the bowels of the earth, and after ejecting the inmates of old _Alma Mater_, converted their tabernacles into a magical cross! Nay, a greater difficulty would still attach to this adventure. The _Pagodas_[407] of Benares and Mathura, the two principal ones in all India, are _cruciformly_ built! and, in order to make both worlds harmonise, the _advocates_ for the monks, or rather their _beliers_, would have to transport their mechanics to those regions also, and turn upside down, and sideways, and every way, whatever was the shape of the original structures, until they moulded them at last into this mysterious cross! Some blame, however, would seem attachable to the _superintendents_ of this vision: and it is that, while imprinting this _mark_ over the head of the principal figure in the cave, or Mithratic temple, at Elephanta,[408] they neglected to demolish the _Lingam_, appertaining to the previous worship; and which actually presents itself but a little from it in the front! To be grave. There was nothing more _natural_ than that those different symbols should be thus united. I have shown that in the various copies of our annals, the _Round Towers_, or overground temples, are designated by the name of _Fidh-nemead_, the meaning of which I have elucidated to be, the _consecrated Lingams_: the _Mithratic caves_, or underground temples, their _correspondents_, it was to be expected, should be known by a _suitable_ denomination; and, accordingly, you will find this very one at New Grange mentioned in the _Chronicon Scotorum_ by the title of _Fiodh Aongusa_; that is, the _Mysterious Cavern_ of _Buddh_; while the _crucifixions_ upon the _former_, and the _cruciform shape_ of the _latter_, are the reverential memorials of his atoning dissolution. The mysteries celebrated within the recesses of those caverns were precisely of that character which are called _Freemasonic_, or _Cabiric_. The signification of this latter epithet is, as to written letters, a desideratum. Selden has missed it; so has Origen and Sophocles. Strabo, too, and Montfaucon, have been equally astray. Hyde was the only one who had any _idea_ of its _composition_, when he declared “it was a _Persian word_ somewhat altered from _Gabri_, or _Guebri_, and signifying fire-worshippers.”