Freemasonry > Free-masons pocket-companion

Hap. ir. OF MASONRY. li
Mitzram or Menes, the fecond yearofthefloo4
fon of Ham, carried to, and pre- 160. Before
ferved in Egypt, their original fkill, Chnft ai88‘
and much cultivated the art : for ancient hiftory
informs us of the early fine tafle of the Egyp¬
tians, by their many magnificent edifices, and
great cities, as Memphis, Heliopolis, Thebes with a
hundred gates, <bc. befides their palaces and fepul-
chres, their obeMJhs and Jlatues, the coloflal Jlatue
of Sphinx, whofe head was a hundred and twen¬
ty feet round, and their famous pyramids, the
greateft being reckoned the Jirft or earlieft of the
feven •wonders of art after the general migration*
Some fay it was built of marble, brought from
the quarries of Arabia ; for there is no veftige of
a quarry near it. Others call it of artificial ftone
made on the fpot, moft of them 3 o feet long.
The pile at bottom was 700 feet fquare, and 481
feet high ; but others make it much higher : and
in rearing it, 300,000 mafons were employed for
twenty years, as if all the people had joined in the
grand defign.
The Egyptians excelled all nations alfo in their
amazing labyrinths. One of them covered the
ground of a whole province, containing many fine
palaces, and 100 temples, dilpoled in its feveral
quarters and divifions, adorned with columns of
the beft porphyry, and the accurate Jlatues of their
gods and princes; which labyrinth the Greeks long
B % afterwards