DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14562#0029
INTRODUCTION.
XX1U
should any of the masonry composing it suffer from dilapida-
tion, the chronological sections A T and B m are reproduced
continually in the masonic lines of the exterior, and in the
figures and dimensions of the chambers in the interior of the
building. The line C D being excavated deep in the rock,
the detritus from the exterior superficies of the monument
would, in accumulating around its foot, tend to preserve the
angular values of the lower courses of masonry. It would be
impossible that an epoch in one Sothis period should be inter-
pretable into the like epoch in the Sothis period anterior to
it, or in the one succeeding it—and still more so if the dates
were in periods of three Sothis cycles. But as a series of
monuments in any Siriadic land are made satellites to those
preceding them in dates of construction—being all projected
on the same cyclic column of time, and in terms of the uni-
versal metric standard—it would be impossible to mistake the
dates of any in the connected series of landmarks. The sea-
level is the lowest secular ebb-level of the equinoctial tides of
autumn. That sea-level is considered to be constant, and is
assumed to be the base to our river and land canons of ordi-
nates. Our theories and generalizations are constantly alter-
ing in proportion to the augmentation of our observations
and experience, by consulting the monumental landmarks
which cover the coast-lines, the rivers, and the mountains of
continents. It is supposed that, the centres of gravity and
of the figure of the earth not being identical, the globe has a
spiral motion, which in fourteen millions of years would shift
the present line of the equator to the polar axis, and that in
consequence of the water covering the globe obeying the cos-
mical motion more readily than the more solid part of it, the
land accommodates itself to the figure it should have, not so
gradually as the waters, but by more or less sudden efforts, as
shown in the prevailing ranges of mountain-chains. But we
do not indulge in these theories; and we attribute constancy
to astronomical sea-levels, to which, as a fixed base of refer-
ence, we compare the motions ef the cultivable crust of the
earth.
G.—I have gathered from your information that the alpha
XX1U
should any of the masonry composing it suffer from dilapida-
tion, the chronological sections A T and B m are reproduced
continually in the masonic lines of the exterior, and in the
figures and dimensions of the chambers in the interior of the
building. The line C D being excavated deep in the rock,
the detritus from the exterior superficies of the monument
would, in accumulating around its foot, tend to preserve the
angular values of the lower courses of masonry. It would be
impossible that an epoch in one Sothis period should be inter-
pretable into the like epoch in the Sothis period anterior to
it, or in the one succeeding it—and still more so if the dates
were in periods of three Sothis cycles. But as a series of
monuments in any Siriadic land are made satellites to those
preceding them in dates of construction—being all projected
on the same cyclic column of time, and in terms of the uni-
versal metric standard—it would be impossible to mistake the
dates of any in the connected series of landmarks. The sea-
level is the lowest secular ebb-level of the equinoctial tides of
autumn. That sea-level is considered to be constant, and is
assumed to be the base to our river and land canons of ordi-
nates. Our theories and generalizations are constantly alter-
ing in proportion to the augmentation of our observations
and experience, by consulting the monumental landmarks
which cover the coast-lines, the rivers, and the mountains of
continents. It is supposed that, the centres of gravity and
of the figure of the earth not being identical, the globe has a
spiral motion, which in fourteen millions of years would shift
the present line of the equator to the polar axis, and that in
consequence of the water covering the globe obeying the cos-
mical motion more readily than the more solid part of it, the
land accommodates itself to the figure it should have, not so
gradually as the waters, but by more or less sudden efforts, as
shown in the prevailing ranges of mountain-chains. But we
do not indulge in these theories; and we attribute constancy
to astronomical sea-levels, to which, as a fixed base of refer-
ence, we compare the motions ef the cultivable crust of the
earth.
G.—I have gathered from your information that the alpha