according to Mr. Bancroft (“Native Races,” vol. iv., p. 533), that “the gallery is one hundred and fifty-seven feet long, increasing in height to over six feet and a half as it penetrates the pyramid; that the well is over six feet square, extending (apparently) down to the base and up to the summit; and that other cross-galleries are blocked up by debris.”
In the Pyramid of Cheops there is a similar opening or passage-way forty-nine feet above the base; it is three feet eleven inches high, and three feet five and a half inches wide; it leads down a slope to a sepulchral chamber or well, and connects with other passage-ways leading up into the body of the pyramid.
THE
GREAT
MOUND
,
NEAR
MIAMISBURG
,
OHIO
.
In both the Egyptian the American pyramids the outside of the structures was covered with a thick coating of smooth, shining cement.
Humboldt considered the Pyramid of Cholula of the same type as the Temple of Jupiter Belus, the pyramids of Meidoun Dachhour, and the group of Sakkarah, in Egypt.
GREAT
PYRAMID
OF
XCOCH
.
In both America and Egypt the pyramids were used as places of sepulture; and it is a remarkable fact that the system of earthworks and mounds, kindred to the pyramids, is found even in England. Silsbury Hill, at Avebury, is an artificial mound one hundred and seventy feet high. It is connected with ramparts, avenues (fourteen hundred and eighty yards long), circular ditches, and stone circles, almost identical with those found in the valley of the Mississippi. In Ireland the dead were buried in vaults of stone, and the earth raised over them in pyramids flattened on the top. They were called “moats” by the people. We have found the stone vaults at the base of similar truncated pyramids in Ohio. There can be no doubt that the pyramid was a developed and perfected mound, and that the parent form of these curious structures is to be found in Silsbury Hill, and in the mounds of earth of Central America and the Mississippi Valley.
We find the emblem of the Cross in pre-Christian times venerated as a holy symbol on both sides of the Atlantic; and we find it explained as a type of the four rivers of the happy island where the civilization of the race originated.
We find everywhere among the European and American nations the memory of an Eden of the race, where the first men dwelt in primeval peace and happiness, and which was afterward destroyed by water.
We find the pyramid on both sides of the Atlantic, with its four sides pointing, like the arms of the Cross, to the four cardinal points-a reminiscence of Olympus; and in the Aztec representation of Olympos (Aztlan) we find the pyramid as the central and typical figure.
Is it possible to suppose all these extraordinary coincidences to be the result of accident? We might just as well say that the similarities between the American and English forms of government were not the result of relationship or descent, but that men placed in similar circumstances had spontaneously and necessarily reached the same results.
CHAPTER VI.
GOLD AND SILVER THE SACRED METALS OF ATLANTIS.
Money is the instrumentality by which man is lifted above the limitations of barter. Baron Storch terms it “the marvellous instrument to which we are indebted for our wealth and civilization.”
It is interesting to inquire into the various articles which have been used in different countries and ages as money. The following is a table of some of them:
Articles of Utility.
-----------------------------+ | India | Cakes of tea. |
-----------------------------+ | China | Pieces of silk. |
-----------------------------+ | Abyssinia | Salt. |
-----------------------------+ | Iceland and Newfoundland | Codfish. |
-----------------------------+ | Illinois (in early days) | Coon-skins. |
-----------------------------+ | Bornoo (Africa) | Cotton shirts. |
-----------------------------+ | Ancient Russia | Skins of wild animals. |
-----------------------------+ | West India Islands (1500) | Cocoa-nuts. |
-----------------------------+ | Massachusetts Indians | Wampum and musket-balls. |
-----------------------------+ | Virginia (1700) | Tobacco. |
-----------------------------+ | British West India Islands | Pins, snuff, and whiskey. |
-----------------------------+ | Central South America | Soap, chocolate, and eggs. |
-----------------------------+ | Ancient Romans | Cattle. |
-----------------------------+ | Ancient Greece | Nails of copper and iron. |
-----------------------------+ | The Lacedemonians | Iron. |
-----------------------------+ | The Burman Empire | Lead. |
-----------------------------+ | Russia (1828 to 1845) | Platinum. |
-----------------------------+ | Rome (under Numa Pompilius) | Wood and leather. |
-----------------------------+ | Rome (under the Caesars) | Land. |
-----------------------------+ | Carthaginians | Leather. |
-----------------------------+ | Ancient Britons Cattle, | slaves, brass, and iron. |
-----------------------------+ | England (under James II.) | Tin, gun-metal, and pewter. |
-----------------------------+ | South Sea Islands | Axes and hammers. |
-----------------------------+
Articles of Ornament.
----------------+ | Ancient Jews | Jewels. |
----------------+ | The Indian Islands and Africa | Cowrie shells, |
----------------+
Conventional Signs.
----------------------------+ | Holland (1574) | Pieces of pasteboard. |
----------------------------+ | China (1200) | Bark of the mulberry-tree. |
----------------------------+
It is evident that every primitive people uses as money those articles upon which they set the highest value—as cattle, jewels, slaves, salt, musket-balls, pins, snuff, whiskey, cotton shirts, leather, axes, and hammers; or those articles for which there was a foreign demand, and which they could trade off to the merchants for articles of necessity—as tea, silk, codfish, coonskins, cocoa-nuts, and tobacco.
Then there is a later stage, when the stamp of the government is impressed upon paper, wood, pasteboard, or the bark of trees, and these articles are given a legal-tender character.
When a civilized nation comes in contact with a barbarous people they seek to trade with them for those things which they need; a metal-working people, manufacturing weapons of iron or copper, will seek for the useful metals, and hence we find iron, copper, tin, and lead coming into use as a standard of values—as money; for they can always be converted into articles of use and weapons of war. But when we ask bow it chanced that gold and silver came to be used as money, and why it is that gold is regarded as so much more valuable than silver, no answer presents itself. It was impossible to make either of them into pots or pans, swords or spears; they were not necessarily more beautiful than glass or the combinations of tin and copper. Nothing astonished the American races more than the extraordinary value set upon gold and silver by the Spaniards; they could not understand it. A West Indian savage traded a handful of gold-dust with one of the sailors accompanying Columbus for some tool, and then ran for his life to the woods lest the sailor should repent his bargain and call him back. The Mexicans had coins of tin shaped like a letter T. We can understand this, for tin was necessary to them in hardening their bronze implements, and it may have been the highest type of metallic value among them. A round copper coin with a serpent stamped on it was found at Palenque, and T-shaped copper coins are very abundant in the ruins of Central America. This too we can understand, for copper was necessary in every work of art or utility.