ome fanciful persons, that one purpose which the great
pyramid was intended to subserve, was to provide a raised small platform
high above the general level of the soil, in order that astronomers
might climb night after night to that platform, and thence make their
observations on the stars, is altogether untenable. Probably no fancy
respecting the pyramids has done more to discredit the astronomical
theory of these structures than has this ridiculous notion; because even
those who are not astronomers and therefore little familiar with the
requirements of a building intended for astronomical observation,
perceive at once the futility of any such arrangement, and the enormous,
one may almost say the infinite disproportion between the cost at which
the raised small platform would have been obtained, and the small
advantage which astronomers would derive from climbing up to it instead
of observing from the ground level. Yet we have seen this notion not
only gravely advanced by persons who are to some degree acquainted with
astronomical requirements, but elaborately illustrated. Thus, in
Flammariou's "History of the Heavens," there is a picture representing
six astronomers in eastern garb, perched in uncomfortable attitudes on
the uppermost steps of a pyramid, whence they are staring hard at a
comet, naturally without the slightest opportunity of determining its
true position in the sky, since they have no direction lines of any sort
for their guidance. Apart from this, their attention is very properly
directed in great part to the necessity of preserving their equilibrium.
In only one point in fact does this picture accord with a priori
probabilities--namely, in the great muscular development of these
ancient observers. They are perfectly herculean, and well they might be,
if night after night they had to observe the celestial bodies from a
place so hard to reach, and where attitudes so awkward must be
maintained during the long hours of the night.

It is perfectly clear, and is in fact one of the chief difficulties of
the astronomical theory of the pyramids, that it would only be when
these buildings were as yet incomplete that they could subserve any
useful astronomical purposes; nevertheless we must not on this account
suffer ourselves at this early stage of our inquiry to be diverted from
the astronomical theory by what must be admitted to be a very strong
argument against it. We have seen that there is such decisive an