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.
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