pplied the term pyramid to the
larger forms of conical and round sepulchral mounds, cairns, or
barrows--such as are found in Ireland, Brittany, Orkney, etc., and also
in numerous districts of the New and Old World;[238] and which are all
characterised by containing in their interior chambers or cells,
constructed usually of large stones, and with megalithic galleries
leading into them. In these chambers (small in relation to the hills of
stone or earth in which they were imbedded) were found the remains of
sepulture, with stone weapons, ornaments, etc. The galleries and
chambers were roofed, sometimes with flags laid quite flat, or placed
abutting against each other; and occasionally with large stones arranged
over the internal cells in the form of a horizontal arch or dome. In his
travels to Madeira and the Mediterranean (1840), Sir W. Wilde details in
interesting terms his visit to the pyramids of Egypt; and in describing
the roof of the interior chambers of one of the pyramids at
Sakkara,[239] he remarks on the analogy of its construction to the great
barrow of Dowth in Ireland; and again, when writing--in his work on the
_Beauties of the Boyne_ (1849)--an account of the great old barrows of
Dowth, New Grange, etc., placed on its banks above Drogheda, he
describes at some length the last of these mounds (New Grange),--stating
that it "consists" of an enormous cairn or "hill of small stones,
calculated at 180,000 tons weight, occupying the summit of one of the
natural undulating slopes which enclose the valley of the Boyne upon the
north. It is said to cover nearly two acres, and is 400 paces in
circumference, and now about 80 feet higher than the adjoining natural
surface. Various excavations (he adds) made into its sides and upon its
summit, at different times, in order to supply materials for building
and road-making, having assisted to lessen its original height, and also
to destroy the beauty of its outline." Like the other analogous mounds
and pyramids placed there and elsewhere, New Grange has a long
megalithic gallery, of above 60 feet in length, leading inward into
three dome-shaped chambers or crypts. After describing minutely, and
with a master-hand, the construction of these interior parts, and the
carvings of circles, spirals, etc.,[240] upon the enormous stones of
which the gallery and crypts are built, Sir William Wilde goes on to
observe:--"We believe with most modern investigators into such subjects,
t