Gabb, Thomas: Finis pyramidis or Disquisitions concerning the antiquity and scientific end of the great pyramid of Giza, or ancient Memphis, in Egypt, and of the first standard of linear measure (Retford, 1806)

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ene of them Jachin, which signifies stands firm, and the
other Booz, viz, in it's strength.

But the most curious part of these metal columns,
is the capital, concerning which there is some miscon-
ception amongst commentators. St. Jerome, in the book
qf Kings, calls the tops of the shaft capita, whereon the
capitals were placed ; and the capitals themselves, he
calls capitella, which are said to be 5 cubits high. Now
in SChron. 3 chap. 15 v. he calls these capitals of 5
cubits high, by the term capita, and retains that term
through the whole chapter. Commentators, therefore,
collating these passages, and finding capita were called
capitals, as well as capitella; and returning to the
1 Kings, 6 chap. 19 and 20 v. where we read " the
capitella which were upon the capita of the columns
were manufactured, as it were, in manner of a lily, of 4
cubits:" so far in 19 verse: then in the 20 verse it is said,
VAnd again other capitella from above on the summit of
the columns according to the size of the column at the
net work."

In answer to this, I perfectly agree with these com-
mentators, that what are called in the 20 v. capitella,
were placed before the summit of the columns, but
that they were other capitals in their acceptation of the
terms alia capitella, I must take leave to dissent from
their opinion. No fulchrum is to be called a column
before it receives a capital, but only the shaft or body
of a column : but the capital being placed on any such
fulchrum, it is then properly called a column : what-
ever, therefore, is said to be on the summit of a column,
must necessarily mean on the top of the capital; and is
that which Vitruvius invariably calls epistylium, when
the work is of marble or other stone, and establishes, as

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