But where so much smoke is there is apt to be some fire. Nearly every superstition in the world has some truth at the bottom by which it was brought into being, and there is every probability that there is here also some kernel of reality. The pyramids certainly exist, and they exist just where these traditions locate them. The great one also proves itself possessed of a marked scientific character. Much of this science must necessarily have come over from antediluvian times. Six hundred years were too short for mankind to have made all the observations here recorded. Noah had special revelations in the science of measures, mechanics, and all that superior wisdom necessary for the building of a ship larger than the Great Eastern, and capable of weathering a wilder and wider sea than ever was navigated before or since. What he and his fathers knew before the flood he certainly would not leave behind when he embarked for a new world, which it was his conscious mission to people. The implements used in the building of the ark, the knowledge of their uses, and how to manufacture them, together with all that God had taught or man had learned on the other side of the flood, he took with him into the ark, and with the same disembarked on our side of that awful water.]By some of his immediate descendants only a short time after the death, if not within the lifetime of his son Shem, the Great Pyramid was built. Of necessity, therefore, the science by which and to which this pyramid was fashioned, and perhaps the very tools which helped to build the ark, at least the knowledge of how to make and use such tools, came over from beyond the flood, and found imperishable memorial in this monument. Hence, though not built by Seth and the Sethite antediluvian patriarchs, there was still a real connection between it and them—between their science and what it embodies.And even what these traditions state with regard to the intent of the building is not wholly without basis in reason. It is pretty clear that there was same as now, which would necessarily create anxiety on the part of the holan atheistic and God-defiant science before the flood they patriarchs to preserve and perpetuate the pure truth as God had given it. Their religious fidelity would involve this, and we know that they were faithful in this respect. As a false worship, an oppressive rule, a corrupt system of weights and measures, and a perverted life in general were set up by Cain and his wicked seed, luring the world to destruction,]Seth and his posterity, as they "continued to esteem God as the Lord of the universe and to have an entire regard to virtue," held to another theology, science, and system of things very sacred and dear to them, which they would be most religiously concerned to preserve and transmit to remotest generations. Noah as a faithful Sethite would be specially anxious and diligent to inculcate and perpetuate that order, his faithfulness to which had saved him and his house when all the rest of mankind perished. The faithful among his descendants could not but share in the same anxieties, particularly when they saw mankind again relapsing into the old Cainite apostasy. Out of devotion to the truth of God, nothing could be more natural for them than, over against the impious Babel tower, to wish for some permanent memorial to God and the sacred wisdom and teaching which they had from him. Acting thus under the holiest of impulses, especially if aided in it by divine inspiration, as Noah was in the building of the ark, just such a modest but mighty science-laden pillar as the Great Pyramid might be anticipated as the result, and the essential import of these strange traditions thus be realized.