I.]

[Footnote 229: Kemble's _Anglo-Saxons_, vol. i. p. 527, etc.]

[Footnote 230: See a case of this prohibition in the _Ecclesiastical
Records of the Presbytery of St. Andrews_ for September 1643. "It is
manifest by experience," says Upton, "that the seventh male child by
just order, never a girle or wench being borne betweene, doth heall only
with touching, by a natural gift, the king's evil; which is a speciall
gift of God, given to kings and queens, as daily experience doth
witnesse." See Upton's Notable Things (1631), p. 28. Charles I. when he
visited Scotland in 1633, in Holyrood Chapel, on St. John's day,
"heallit 100 persons of the cruelles, or kingis eivell, yong and
olde."--Dalyell's _Superstitions_, p. 62.]

[Footnote 231: See the "_Charisma Basilicon_" (1684) of John Browne,
"Chirurgion to His Majesty," for a full and charming account of the
whole process and ceremonies of the royal "touch," the prayers used on
the occasion, and due proofs of the alleged wondrous effects of this
"sanative gift, which hath (says Dr. Browne) for above 640 years been
confirmed and continued in our English Princely line, wherein is not so
much of their Majesty shown as of their Divinity," and which is only
doubted by "Ill affected men and Dissenters."]

[Footnote 232: See the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for December 1787.]

IS THE GREAT PYRAMID OF GIZEH A METROLOGICAL MONUMENT?

The following observations form a corrected Abstract, from No. 75 of
the _Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_, of a
communication made to that Society on the 20th January 1868, and
entitled _Pyramidal Structures in Egypt and elsewhere; and the
Objects of their Erection_. Some additional points are dwelt upon in
the Notes and Appendix. As stated at the time, the communication was
not at all spontaneous, but enforced by the previous criticisms of
Professor Smyth.

There are many proposed derivations of the word Pyramid. Perhaps the
origin of the name suggested by the distinguished Egyptologist, Mr.
Birch, from two Coptic words, "_pouro_," "ing," and "_emahau_," or
"_maha_," "tomb,"--the two in combination signifying "the king's
tomb,"--is the most correct. "_Men_," in Coptic, signifies "monument,"
"memorial;" and "_pouro-men_," or "king's monument," may possibly also
be the original form of the word.[233]

Various English authors, as Pope,[234] Pownall,[235] Professor Daniel
Wilson,[236] Burton,[237] had long a