know where the Scripture records
the sealing up of the great pyramid; but it is all but certain that
during the very time when the pyramid was being built astronomical
observations were in progress which, for their interpretation, involved
of necessity a continual reference to the ratio in question. No one who
considers the wonderful accuracy with which, nearly two thousand years
before the Christian era, the Chaldaeans had determined the famous cycle
of the Saros, can doubt that they must have observed the heavenly bodies
for several centuries before they could have achieved such a success;
and the study of the motions of the celestial bodies compels 'men to
trouble themselves' about the famous ratio of the circumference to the
diameter.

We now come upon a new relation (contained in the dimensions of the
pyramid as thus determined) which, by a strange coincidence, causes the
height of the pyramid to appear to symbolise the distance of the sun.
There were 5813 pyramid inches, or 5819 British inches, in the height of
the pyramid according to the relations already indicated. Now, in the
sun's distance, according to an estimate recently adopted and freely
used,[22] there are 91,400,000 miles or 5791 thousand millions of
inches--that is, there are approximately as many thousand millions of
inches in the sun's distance as there are inches in the height of the
pyramid. If we take the relation as exact we should infer for the sun's
distance 5819 thousand millions of inches, or 91,840,000 miles--an
immense improvement on the estimate which for so many years occupied a
place of honour in our books of astronomy. Besides, there is strong
reason for believing that, when the results of recent observations are
worked out, the estimated sun distance will be much nearer this pyramid
value than even to the value 91,400,000 recently adopted. This result,
which one would have thought so damaging to faith in the evidence from
coincidence--nay, quite fatal after the other case in which a close
coincidence had appeared by merest accident--is regarded by the
pyramidalist as a perfect triumph for their faith.

They connect it with another coincidence, viz. that, assuming the height
determined in the way already indicated, then it so happens that the
height bears to half a diagonal of the base the ratio 9 to 10. Seeing
that the perimeter of the base symbolises the annual motion of the earth
round the sun, while the height represents the radiu