Masonic Science—Geometry.

eight hunaered and twenty-two years , was that he might have time to cultivate and develope this and and kindred sciences . The conjecture is highly probable , and doubtless it is owing to the large share of attention thus given to the study of

Geometry , that it was brought to such early perfection . All the hearts and lives of Cain ' s posterity were given to the progress of arts and manufactures , and of their own glory . Cain himself built tlie first fenced city , the Bible tells us , and he could

have scarcely practised architecture with any degree of success without the aid of geometry ; nor could he have divided the land of Nod

amonohis children , without some acquaintance with this fundamental science . We find also in the book of Joshua a regular survey of the land of Canaan , which was described and drawn on maps , and the whole territory divided into provinces . Even the

book of Genesis bears witness to the division of Egypt into provinces , when Joseph became Pharoah ' s prime minister . While it is true , therefore , that this science must have been cultivated from the earliest times , we owe its comparative

perfection to the Egyptians . Egypt was the nursing mother both of the ancient sciences and the ancient mysteries . The two grew up together , and were in fact one . They had a unity of growth and of purpose . Those who practiced the one ,

taught the other . There is a legend in the craft that the famous Euclid , the greatest geometrician of ancient or modern times , was a Mason . This you may call " a philosophical myth "; it is , at all

events , au ingenious method of conveying the Masonic truth that there was in Egypt , as Dr . Mackey observes , " " a close connection between geometry and the great moral and religious system which was among the Egyptians , what

Freemasonry is in the present day—a secret institution for the inculcation of the same principles , and inculcating them in the same symbolic manner . " There is something curious about the original use of Geometry , which is explained by the very

etymology of the word , signifying " the science thafc measures fche earth . " In other words , fche ancient geometrician was a land-surveyor . In Egypt the annual overflow of the Nile always made business lively for him . It swept away all

their landmarks , destroyed their boundaries , and laid the whole country into one field . We should like to have been a Freemason , in other words a Geometrician in those times . After the floods

Masonic Science—Geometry.

spring-trade was always brisk . Every land-owner had to have his ground re-surveyed , and the " measurer of the earth " was in much request . Dry times to him were emphatically dull times , for he knew , above all others , the full meaning of fche

poet's phrase , the " flood-tide of success . " His bark sailed on its seas , and when it ebbed , so did his fortunes .

Geometry lies at the root of all mathematics , and hence the noble uses which it subserves , not only iu the higher sciences of the present day , but in many of the calculations of every-day life . It makes a sort of royal road to arithmetical

calculations , shortening and making certain many otherwise tedious and difficult problems . So important is it , that it is a part of a modern common-school education . Then consider how man , whose life is but a span , whose mind is finite , whose body is

but a clod , is enabled by the mysterious powers of Geometry , wedded to Astronomy , to weigh in a balance the far-off worlds in space , to tell their geological characters , and their probable distances . Truly the geometrician is a nobleman , in whose

brain there is spark of divinity allying him to the Supreme Grand Geometrician who planned the universe , aud in obedience to whose wondrous laws all things terrestrial and celestial move . We should not close , without a reference to the

letter " G . "—a compound symbol , and the noblest known to Freemasonry . This initial letter points to Geometry , and has also a sublime reference . The study of this science leads tlie mind "through nature up to nature's God" ; it discovers the Great First Cause in his works . But while the

letter " G . " symbolises this science of sciences , it also points to God himself , being the initial letter of the ineffable name , Jehovah . Worthy symbolism , representing in one letter both the All-Father , the Great Geometrician of the universe , and

and Geometry , the key to the arts and sciences . Brethren , does not the craft do well to -patronize Geometry ?—The Keystone .

A Relic Of Solomon's Temple.

A RELIC OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE .

From a local paper we learn that at a recent meetino- of Union Lodge , No . 60 , of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons , Baltimore , thers was presented to the Lodge , to be laid up in its archives , a portion of one of the stones of Solomon ' s Temple .