Papers On The Great Pyramid.

PAPERS ON THE GREAT PYRAMID .

BY BRO . AVM . KOWBOTTOM . ( Continued from page 445 . ) IL—THE DATE OF THE BUILDING .

IF , as I have shoAvn in my last , the Great Pyramid is altogether unique in the position Avhich it occupies on the face ol the earth , it is not less remarkable iu date , for from its building may be said to date the formulating of the exact sciences as systematic studies . This is a point to Avhich a Mason cannot give too close attention . Those Avho read the first part of the Lodge Lecture on " The True History of Freemasonry in

England , " which appeared in the January number , AVEI remember the conclusive arguments which the writer adduces in favour of an operative orig in for Freemasonry . " All our symbols , " says he , " all our teaching , all our ornaments , all our jewels , all the customs and technicalities of our Lodges , from first to last , point to the operative basis , ancl are derived from the actual Avorking tools and customs of purely operative and mechanical Masonry . " Ancl he accepts the traditions which make Freemasons builders in a literal sense of those wonderful constructions .

" —Erected by the Avorld ' s primarval sires , The mighty relics of mysterious days . " This operative origin is , indeed , the only permissable explanation of the rise and progress of Fremasonry , but there is also , at the same time , much that is of a deeper signification , and carries the mind aAvay in speculations , as to Avhen this custom had its rise , whence that saying was derived , and IIOAV such aud such a symbol received its

application . Of course , Ave may give a general assent to the statement of Preston , that •' ' from the commencement of the world , we may trace the foundation of Masonry , " and that " Ever since symmetry began , ancl harmony displayed her charms , our Order has had a being . " This is true enough of Masonry regarded simply as speculative iu its character , and , as a recent critic has remarked , is neither more nor less valuable than the statement that the noble science of Forestry began Avith the life of our first parents in the Garden of Eden .

We Avant something more decided than this , something that will give reality to the boast that Masonry is the oldest of all sciences ; something that AVEI connect the noble art of building Avith the great Creation Work of the Divine Architect Himself , and bring them into unison . Then , indeed , might we surely feel that Ave had found an ori gin Avorthy of our Sacred Order . NOAV the date of the Great Pyramid is by no means a simple matter to determine , and

Avere it not for a number of remarkable phenomena pointing to a particular epoch , it Avould indeed be still involved in obscurity . True , Egyptologists are pretty generally agreed in assigning it to the Fourth Dynasty , but since they differ some 2 , 500 years in their calculations as to the date of such Dynasty , but little help is to be derived from them . At the same time , it is but due to the memory of the late Mr . WEliam Osburn , as Professor th points outto state that he ascribed the duration of the Fourth

Smy , D ynast y to the years 2228 to 2108 B . C ., Avithiu which period the UOAV accepted Great P yramid date of -2170 B . C . falls . The Rov . Dr . Nolan fixed the limits for the building of the Great Pyramid at from -171 to 2123 B . C ., a calculation Avhich inclines me to think that he Avas acquainted