Masonic Notes And Queries.

masons , for betraying the secrets of the Craft . About this time , a body was found in Lake Ontario . Some persons believed it to be the corpse of Morgan , who had been taken to the Falls of Niagara , and having had his throat cut from ear to ear , according to the Masonic rule in such cases of treachery , had been

thrown into the roaring cataract . Mr . " Weed , it is said , on being asked by one of his political friends if it was really the body of Morgan that had been found , replied that ' it was a good enough Morgan until after the election . ' " Does the above require a „ comment?—Ex . Ex .

TUE GBEAT PYEAIIXD . Having always be ' en given to understand that the Great Pyramid was connected with the system of Freemasonry , as practised by the ancient Egyptians ( vide AIGEB , & c ) , I was astonished to find a work , recently published , entitled Our Inheritance in the

Great Pyramid . By Professor C . PIAZZI SMYTH , F . R . S . S . ( L . and E . ) , Astronomer Royal for Scotland , and founded on the late Mr . John Taylor ' s idea that it was erected for the sole purpose of preserving the true measure of a British—then Egyptian—inch ! The workwith its beautiful hotographcarefull

, p , y coloured map , aud elaborate diagrams , is all about a small porphyry trough , or coffer , without a lid , contained in the innermost chamber of the Great Pyramid of Ghizeh— " the sole thing which he containeth within his darksome entrails . " There the coffer has beenfor thousands of yearsall alonein a

miracu-, , , lously ventilated chamber , in the midst of a stupendous mass of masonry . It is approached by galleries , which , it is maintained , have a symbolic meaning in their proportions . Underneath is a well ; outside is the desert ; overhead are the sun , and moon , and

stars . That the arrangements of the building are related to these is not disputed ; the " orientation , " a former relation to the polestar , and so on , are not among the topics which Mr . Smyth puts forward as new . But what is this strange little porphyry box , so carefully hidden away in the " entrails" of the largest of the pyramids ? A box made of a material

not liable to be much affected in its dimensions by change of temperature , ancl placed iu a ventilated sanctuary , to which approach is almost impossible ? Professor Smyth tells , in a very graphic manner , the story of the resolute way in which the Cali ph AI Mamounson of Haroun AI Raschidhad the Great

, , Pyramid opened , expecting to find immense hidden treasure there ; and also of the resolute way in which the Cali ph made the best of it when he found there was neither silver , gold , or precious stones . Painfully the men have made their way up the galleries , though not without doing violence to the structure

of the building , because they could not move a closefitting block of marble which was in their way ; and now they stand , with their torches , at the grand chamber .-

—"And what find they there ? A right noble apartment ., 34 ft . long , 17 broad , and 19 high , of polished granite throughout , in blocks squared and true , and so large ' that eight floors it , eight roofs it , eight flags tho ends , ancl sixteen the sides ; ' and all put together with such exquisite skill that the joints are barely discernible to the closest inspection . " Ay , ay , no doubt , a well-built room ; hut what does it contain ? What is the treasure ? The treasure ! Yes , indeed , where is all the

treasure ? They look around them , aud see nothing of it , and trim their torches again , aud carry them to every part without any better success . The room is cleaugarnished , too , as it were ; and , according to the ideas of its founders , complete ancl perfectly ready for its visitors , so long expected , so long delayed ; hut the gross minds who occupy it now find it all barren ; they declare that there is nothing whatever in the whole extent of the apartment from one end to anothernothing , except an empty stone chest without a lid .

" The Caliph AI Mamoun was thunderstruck . He had arrived at tho very part of the Pyz-amid he had so long desired to see , aud had now found nothing , absolutely nothing ; that is , nothing that ho coulcl make any use of . Then the people about him begau to exclaim at his sacrilegious violence , and deplore their waste of time and loss of money . But ho was a Caliph of the able

da } ' of Eastern rulers , so he had a large sum of money brought from his treasury and buried by night in a certain spot . Next clay he caused the men to dig precisely there , and they found a treasure of gold ; ' and the-Caliph ordered it to be counted , and lo ! it was _ the exact sum that had been expended in the works , neither more nor lessand the Calih was astonishedand

said-; p , lie could not understand how the Kings of the Pyramids of old could have known exactly how much money hewould have expended in the undertaking , and he was lost in surprise . ' So the Caliph went home , musing on the wonderful events that had happened ; and . the King ' s chamber and the ' granite chest without a lid' were troubled by him no more .

" The poets of the Court did indeed again tune thenlyres and celebrate their invincible patron's discoveries in that lidless box of granite—a dead man with a breastplate of gold , and an emerald vase a foot in diameter , and 'a carbuncle which shone with a light like the light of day , and a sword of inestimable value ; ' though , according to some , the whole chest was crammed to the

brim , full of gold ' in very large pieces . ' But nothing further of any note was actually done in a cause which men . began now to deem , in spite of their poets , to be absolutely worthless , and iu a region more profitless than the desert itself . The way once opened , however , by AI Mamoun , remained then free to all , and ' men did enter it , ' says one of the honestest chroniclers of that day , ' for many years , and descended by tho slippery passage which is in it , ' but with no other result than this , ' that some of them came out safe and others died . ' "

Professor Smyth quotes the legends about the Secret of the Pyramid in their proper places ( aud in a very happy manner , too ) ; but it is not necessary to follow the history of modern investigations and conjectures about the constructor of the Great Pyramidits relation to astronomyand the meaning of

-, , the porphyry coffer . This history includes names like those of Harvey the physician and Sir Isaac Newton , and takes iu the whole tribe of -Egyptologers . Suffice it to say that the balance of sagacity seems to have rested with the older investigators . Harvey predicted the ventilation of the chamber , and Newton , if

he had only had a little more information under his eye , would in all probability have knocked on the head the idea—which most persons now believe is knocked on the head—that this lidless box is a sarcophagus . But what , then , is it ? A curious reference to the Book of Job will be

found in Professor Smyth ' s book ; but , in the mean time , read Zachariah v ., especially from the 5 th verse to the end ; Ezekiel xlv . 9 to 14 ; aud the 1 st verse of Ezekiel xlvi . This will prepare the mind with respect to the tremendous importance which was once attached among these trans-Mediterranean peoples to