It was with this aid that the ancient builders moved and lifted the mon

strous stones.

That thought was quickly followed by another of far greater moment to me: Could I not with this powerful help move the stone that imprisoned me?

The sheets were so large that I found much difficulty in getting one to the mouth of the passageway. There I found that the big stone was held up at one side by some small object, so that there was a clear space below it. I slid the metal under it, gave the great block a push. It readily yielded and toppled over, leaving ample room for me to climb out above it.

I rushed wildly out into the glorious light of day. My discovery had saved my life!

The sun was fast approaching the Libyan Hills, and I realized that I must hasten back to my boat and friends, so as not to alarm them by an absence already much longer than was my wont. But what to do about the tomb and its priceless contents? I re-entered it and tried to obtain a piece of the precious metal. The sheets were all too heavy for me to carry away, and I could neither break nor cut off a fragment. I brought my own traps and a sort of crow-bar out of the tomb, climbed up above the entrance, and succeeded in tumbling a large stone down in front of it. A mass of smaller stones and an avalanche of sand followed, and I saw, to my satisfaction, that nothing was visible to disclose the secret of that little mound. I hid the crow-bar in the sand and was soon galloping along on my four miles ride to the river. Long before reaching my dahabiyeh, however, I had very firmly decided to say nothing, for the present, of my day's experience. I wanted time to think what was to be done. The importance of what I had found impressed me each moment with more and more force, and my state of mind, by the time I had reached the boat, was almost chaotic. That night I found in my pocket the high priest's ring, and that served to convince me, when I woke next day, that my recollections were not of a dream.

Probably you will now explain for yourself without difficulty the various strange things that occurred, but I have since given the subject such a great amount of study, that as I am sure some of my deductions will not occur to you-I will briefly state them all.

In lifting a heavy object, the only dif ficulty would be to raise it sufficiently to introduce the "Mantle of Osiris" between it and the earth, and finally to be able to remove the metal. In the tomb the situation was evident enough; protected by the sheet of-as I will now name it-Osiris, tied under its whole surface, the cover of the sarcophagus was easily lifted to its place. The framework erected above it was to lift it sufficiently to remove the sheets of osiris and then to lower the stone to its destination. Before this was accomplished the work had in some way been interrupted.

How the entrance to the tomb had been covered up, and why it was never reopened until accident had revealed it to me, is a matter only for conjecture, and in fact is not important.

The occurrences while I was in the tomb are easy to understand—since we have the wonderful key. I could not sit on the stone, above the osiris, for my body there had not weight enough to counterbalance my legs that were below. The wine, when poured out, had so little weight that it would scarcely leave the flask; and when I raised the cup-with a motion accelerated by its unexpected lightness-the wine continued its upward movement, struck the ceiling, spread itself out there, and adhered by capillary attraction, there being no power of gravitation sufficient to make it fall.

When I had pushed the cover-stone, it had easily moved until a part of it extending beyond the protecting metal which was no longer secured in its place by the cords, and regaining its normal weight, had overbalanced the protected portion, and the whole mass toppling over, had fallen, bottom up, the osiris then being above it and powerless. The sickening sensation I experienced when standing on the metal was like sea-sickness, caused by the or

gans in the body not bearing firmly down as they normally do.*

But, what was the significance of the mysterious cartouche that I had for the fourth time found on the priest's ring? Why was it "The Mantle of Osiris?" It was many months before I deciphered it. It is ideographic, not hieroglyphic. The triangle represented a pyramid; the straight line under it was the "mantle" itself; but why the circle below? The conviction that I finally and firm ly arrived at about this necessitated a most extraordinary premise; the circle was the earth above which the pyramid was lifted up by the sacred metal; but in that case, one must assume that the Egyptians at a very remote period knew that this earth was a sphere!

History records the Greek Thales, who lived about 640 B.C., as the first to suggest the sphericity of the earth.

I have come to no conclusion as to the antiquity of the use of osiris by the Egyptians.

For various reasons I am inclined to fix the time of the construction of the lost tomb in the nineteenth dynasty, about 1500 B.C.

One thing further regarding the triangle, the line, and the circle. I am convinced that their existence in the emblems of modern Freemasonry originated in their use by the great builders of Egypt as the insignia of their allpowerful ally.

All these things, however, were of little moment compared to the one great question which soon entirely engrossed my attention. Where was osiris to be found? Why had it not been discovered by later civilizations? When I had time to consider the matter carefully, I realized that the few pieces of the metal hidden in the tomb, though of enormous scientific interest, were quite inadequate to any material

*In reading this over. I note the omission of two facts course entirely do away with the weight of an object. If

that I demonstrated while in the tomb; osiris did not of

it had done so, the centrifrugal force of the earth's revolution would have sent any such object flying off into space. I found that a stone, held over the metal, seemed to weigh about half as much as the same sized piece of cork ordinarily would. Another curious thing; a substance held over two layers of osiris was not rendered any lighter than over one sheet of it! The ancients apparently had found just what thickness was requisite. A

This was the

service to mankind. problem I set myself to solve, and I decided that so long as I could feel that there was the slightest chance of my accomplishing this, I would not disclose the secret of the tomb. I went again to look at the enchanted mound, and realized, with some dismay, that though there was practically no chance of anyone else discovering the entrance to the tomb, I had so fully covered it that it would require a gang of men to clear away the débris, and that consequently, I could never again enter it alone or secretly.

I think I almost drove myself insane with constant study of the probable origin of the sacred metal. In fact, at one period, I had to force myself to think of something else, as I had reached such a condition that I could scarcely eat or sleep. I worked myself to almost a skeleton in continued overhauling of all available Egyptian writings. I visited all the museums of Europe, and finally only put aside the subject from sheer exhaustion of body and mind.

I never met with the sought - for monogram save in the three instances, besides the priest's ring, to which I have alluded, and from them could gather but two possible facts of moment that the sacred metal was brought from somewhere in a ship, and that Nebseni, its custodian, may have brought it from the Land of the Narrow Water." This naturally suggested the upper Nile-in fact, I never considered anything else. But a journey up the river as far as was possible in the disturbed state of affairs in the Soudan revealed nothing. I had about concluded that, until the remote and unknown regions of the upper Nile were made entirely accessible, any further search on my part was useless.

In this state of mind I came to Gibraltar, and you can easily understand the effect that was produced upon me when Captain Breeze disclosed the fact that the all-significant cartouche was cut in a cliff of the "Haunted Mountain of the Wind."

does not hold it any more effectively if made twice as thick. [T. P.]

that of the alleged mouth of hell being

I see ships sailing in the air as easily as they now sail in the sea. The aerial ship, with inherent strength and motivepower that do not overcome its buoyancy, at once becomes practicable.

I see ships sailing over the water instead of through it; their load does not increase their draft; and engines and fuel being no burden, steamships can make almost unlimited speed.

I see war-ships carrying their armor and monstrous guns-all weightless.*

I see a lightening of half of the labors of man and of his beasts of burden. Every load of a car, a wagon, or even a hod becomes but a fraction of what it was.

I see the whole world richer because man with infinitely less labor controls the materials and forces of nature.

Even with my very limited inventiveness in such things, I see two new powers which will mark an era in mechanical development compared to which all former ones sink into insignificance.

The first is this: A stream of water

Pope forgets that the weight of a gun is necessary to absorb the recoil of its discharge.-W. B.

running down a short distance in an ordinary pipe would push the water up many times as far in a continuation of the same pipe, made of osiris-like a siphon reversed. Practically, then, water would run up hill.

Finally, and as far as I can now see, the most valuable of all uses of osiris is that by a simple application it creates a constant and practically unlimited moving power. A wheel hung vertically, with a weighted periphery and with half its diameter excluded from the attraction of gravitation by means of a sheet of osiris extending under one side of it as far as its axis, would constantly revolve, with a power only limited by the weight of its periphery. Like an "over-shot" water-wheel, one side would be always descending heavy and the other ascending light. I leave you to imagine the revolution that will be produced when steam and other powers are almost entirely superseded by this new force which will perpetually do man's work with absolutely no cost to him.

in

In the bewildering intricacy of Nature's phenomena there are few laws to which there are no variations or apparent contradictions. Though Keppler found the great fact of the elliptical track of each planet around the sun, Leverrier discovered aberrations the motion of Uranus, and thence deduced the presence of the planet Neptune. Sir Isaac Newton, the giant among philosophers, promulgated the great law of gravitation. Even to this, a slight variation-like that in the apparently unswervable courses of the mighty planets-existed, unknown to him. Peace be to his ashes! I do not intend by the introduction here of these world-famed names to seem to class myself with them. Their conclusions were the result of intellectual research; my discovery was but an accident.

THEODORE POPE.

TANGIERS, April 10, 1891..