certainly done. And that hole was opened for him, which stands open to this day, with fire and vinegar. Two smiths prepared and sharpened the iron and engines, which they forced in: and there was a great expense in the opening it; and the thickness of the wall was found to be twenty cubits. Within they found a square well, and in the square of it there were doors: every door of it opened into a house (or vault), in which there were dead bodies wrapped up in linen. Towards the upper part of the Pyramid, they found a chamber, in which was a hollow stone; in it was a statue of stone, like a man, and within it a man, upon whom was a breastplate of gold, set with jewels, and on him were written characters with a pen, which no man can explain."

Greaves, an Englishman, who visited the Great Pyramid in 1648, described the passages thus opened, and then open, very accurately, and suspected that at the bottom of a well in the Pyramid, was the passage to those secret vaults mentioned by Herodotus; but he made no new discovery. Davison, who visited it in the middle of the eighteenth century, discovered some secret chambers and passages connecting the largest gallery with the central room, and an apartment four feet high over it. He descended the well 155 feet, but found further progress blocked up. Caviglia was the first to discover the above suspected passage. After much trouble in clearing the narrow opening at the end of the first or entrance gallery of the Pyramid, he found that it did not terminate at that point, as hitherto supposed, but proceeded downwards to the distance of 200 feet. It ended in a doorway on the right, which was found to communicate with the bottom of the well. But the new passage did not terminate here: it went beyond the doorway twenty

three feet, and then took a horizontal direction for twenty-eight more, where it opened into a spacious chamber immediately under the central room.

This new chamber is twenty-seven feet broad, and sixty-six feet long. The floor is irregular; nearly one half the length from the eastern or entrance end, being level, and about fifteen feet from the ceiling; while, in the middle, it descends five feet lower, in which part there is a hollow space bearing all the appearance of the commencement of a well, or shaft. From thence it rises to the western end, so that there is scarcely room between the floor and the ceil ing to stand upright.

On the south of this chamber is a passage hollowed out, just high and wide enough for a man to creep along upon his hands and knees, which continues in the rock for fiftyfive feet, and then suddenly ends. Another at the east end commences with a kind of arch, and runs about forty feet in the solid body of the Pyramid.

Mr. Salt, the late intelligent British Consul to Egypt, was so struck by this discovery, as to ex press his belief that the under-ground rooms were used for “the perfortance of solemn and secret myste ries."

As to the Second Pyramid of Gizeh, the ancients knew less about it than they did of the first. Hero dotus says it has no under-ground chambers, and the other ancient authorities are silent. But the enter prising Belzoni found its entrance, in the north front, in 1818, and discovered at the same time, that it had been previously forced open by the Arabian Caliph, Ali Mehemet, A. D. 782, more than a thousand years before. After forcing an entrance, and advancing along a narrow passage, one hundred feet long, he found a central chamber, forty

There have been many opinions expressed by learned men as to the object of these structures. One is, that they were the granaries of Joseph. This may be confuted by the smallness of the rooms, and the time required in building. Another, that they were observatories, which is accusing the builders of great absurdity, since the neighbouring rocks were better calculated for the purpose. The Arabians generally think that they were built by King Saurid, before the deluge, as a refuge for himself, and the public records, from the Flood; but this opinion requires no answer. Josephus, the Jewish historian, who wrote A. D. 71, ascribes them to his countrymen, during the captivity in Egypt. As sun-dials, they would have failed. Shaw and Bryant, who wrote in the middle of the last century, believed them to be temples, and the stone chest, a tank for holding water used for purification. Pauw, who lived at the same time with Shaw and Bryant, considers the Great Pyramid as the tomb of Osiris; and that Osiris having fourteen tombs for various parts of his dismembered body, fourteen pyramids must have been devoted to them, and the annual funeral mysteries connected with his death and resurrection. But the greater number of writers, ancient and modern believe it to be the tomb of Cheops, the alleged builder. Improving on this notion, Maillet (1760) supposed that the chambers were built for the purpose

parte, when in Egypt (1799), that the object was to keep the buried body undecayed, by closely sealing up all access to the outward air. Another ingenious theory ascribes them to the Shepherd Kings, a foreign pastoral nation which oppressed Egypt in the early times of the Pharaohs. However, this is, after all, but conjecture. The utmost uncertainty exists in all that concerns these gigantic, unwieldy, and mysterious buildings. Their builders, origin, date, and purposes, are entirely lost in the night of ages. As the sides of all the Pyramids face the cardinal points, and of course give the true meridian of the places where they are situated, it would seem that their builders had made some progress in scientific knowledge; and the buildings themselves, under all circumstances, notwithstanding their plain exterior, clearly show the advanced state of art in those very early times.

BUCKSTONE.

AMONG the many natural curiosities of our country, the admiration of the scientific, as well as of the ordinary observer, has long been excited by those huge single masses of rock, which, resting on a comparatively small pivot, and exactly balanced there, still stand as steadily as though the narrow part were uppermost, and the whole body were firmly lodged on its base. Such are the celebrated Boulder Stone of the North, and the Logan Rock of

Cornwall. Another equally deserv- | ing notice is called BUCKSTONE, on the borders of Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire.

Buckstone is by no means the largest of its kind; though in some respects, perhaps, it repays more than any other the visit of a tourist. Independently of its extraordinary form and position, the situation in which it is placed, gives it a very strong additional interest. Removed only a few yards from the summit of a high sugar-loaf hill, commanding one of the most varied and beautiful landscapes of which this country can boast, it is itself seen in some directions at a very great distance, conspicuous above the copsewood, which embosoms it on every side; and inviting us to examine only its own extraordinary character, it presents to us a view which would otherwise probably have escaped our notice altogether. This view would of itself amply repay us for the time required to make the excursion from any of the neighbouring places.

This rock is about three miles from Monmouth, near the village of Stanton. The tourist may reach it either by a footpath through beautiful woods and fields, or by a more round-about road in a carriage. The scene opening at this spot is very extensive and greatly diversified. It is bounded to the west and north by the mountains of Monmouthshire and Brecknockshire; towards the north-east and east, by the Clee Hills in Shropshire, and the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire; to the south-east and south, by the long Gloucestershire range beyond the Severn. Besides these counties, it is said, the experienced eye may discover points in Glamorgan, Radnor, and Somerset. The home views comprehend the Forest of Dean, some of the richest districts of Herefordshire, with one of the

sweetest valleys of the Wye, whose is silver thread is seen winding its way between the woods and rocks of the north-east, whilst immediately round the rock, and at the feet of the spectator, waves a noble ocean of oak woods, spread over a wide and undulating surface of hill and dale.

The rock itself is composed of a substance called millstone-grit,— a plum-pudding stone, consisting chiefly of sand and quartz pebbles, familiarly known in the neighbour-p hood by the name of Jackstones. Its circumference at the top is above fifty-three feet, whilst its base is less than eleven feet in girth. Its perpendicular height from the extremity of the projecting point to the level of the centre of the base is nearly fourteen feet. The whole mass rests on the middle of a square even table of stone, corresponding in extent very nearly with the extremity of the rock itself, and composed of the same material. But what makes the balance in this rock still more wonderful is, that this large square smooth insulated stone, which serve for its bed, far from being horizon tal, is an inclined plane, sloping st an angle of almost, twenty-five de grees; consequently, many bodies that might be balanced, on a level ground, must of necessity roll down this leaning stone, yet this huge rock has kept its place for ages.

Geologists probably will almost unanimously agree, that the hand ef man never interfered in either placing this rock on its present site, or in hewing it into its present form,-that it is the work of nature only. The imagination of the tourist indeed has often regarded it as the work of art, and pronounced it to be nothing less than a druidical altar; and fancy may discern in an adjoining stone, the solid basin to receive the blood of the victim, or to cleanse the hands

years ago, to a curious incident, with | which many of our readers are probably acquainted. A lieutenant in the Navy, stationed on this part of the coast, and probably tired with the monotony and inactivity of his employment, determined on the exploit of putting this popular superstition to the test of experiment. He accordingly proceeded with his men to the spot; and, on applying the strength of a party of stout English sailors, the Logan-rock soon gave evidence of the fallacy of the superstition with which it was regarded, and which, like all mere superstitions, was immediately dispelled on being put to the test. The Logan-rock was thus removed, though to only a trifling distance, from the spot where it had probably rested ever since the Creation, and the centre of gravity being altered, its rocking property was entirely destroyed.

The affair, however, did not terminate here, as the adventure, when it became known, excited considerable indignation, being regarded as little less than sacrilege by the neighbouring cottagers, whose feeling were probably still further excited, at the idea of losing an attraction which, as it is the means of bringing many visitors to this otherwise barren and neglected spot, is frequently, of course, productive of some small pecuniary advantage to them.

for the purpose; and, with admirable skill, the gentleman who had displaced it hoisted the Logan-rock into its former position again, amidst the acclamations of the surrounding neighbourhood.

It will naturally be asked, what is the origin of the Logan-rock, and does it owe its singular properties to design or accident? On this subject different opinions have prevailed. By the antiquary, it has always been considered as the work of art, being a druidical monument employed in some of the ceremenies and superstitions practised by them, most probably in the trial by ordeal. Without at all disputing that such may have been the use to which it was applied, the geologist, however, considers the Logan-rock to be the work of nature alone, as granite is well known naturally to disintegrate into masses of a somewhat similar form.

To explain this opinion more clearly, we may observe, that most kinds of stone have a natural ten dency to separate into masses of a particular shape; thus, slate breaks into thin and flat pieces, and granite generally into cubical or tabular blocks, of which, on the coast of Cornwall, there are numerous examples. These cubical blocks, owing to the action of the elements, have a tendency gradually to be come rounded, by the decompo sition of the corners or solid angles; and thus, rude spheroidal blocks, like the Logan-rock, may occasionally be formed, although an exceedingly rare combination of circumstances will be required, in order to produce a block possessing this pecu liar property.

This explanation, it will be seen, is founded on strict observation and analogy, and we can therefore have little hesitation in preferring it to one based upon mere theory or con