Notwithstanding the contentions of opposing antiquaries, and the usually received ideas that the "Irish Round Towers" were of Christian, and not heathen, origin, the following book, turning up very unexpectedly, seems to settle the question in favour of O'Brien, and of those who urge the incredibly ancient devotion of the Round Towers to a heathen myth-fire-worship, in fact.

"John O'Daly, 9 Anglesea Street, Dublin. Catalogue of Rare and Curious Books, No. 10, October 1855, Item 105: De Antiquitate Turrum Belanorum Pagana Kerriensi, et de Architecturâ non Campanilis Ecclesiastica, T. D. Corcagiensi, Hiberno. Small 4to, old calf, with numerous woodcut engravings of Round Towers interspersed through the text. Iol. Lovanii, 1610." The bookseller adds: "I never saw another copy of this curious old book." This book—which there is no doubt is genuine-would seem finally to settle the question as to the character of these Irish Round Towers, which are not Christian belfries, as Dr. George Petrie, and others sharing his erroneous beliefs, persistently assure us, but heathen Lithoi, or obelisks, in the sense of all those referred to in other parts of this work. They were raised in the early religions, as the objects of a universal worship. All antiquaries know of what object the phallus stands as the symbolical representation. needs not to be more particular here.

It

The "Fleur-de-Lis" is a sacred symbol, descending from the Chaldæans, adopted by the Egyptians, who converted it into the deified "scarab," the emblem of the "Moon-god;" and it is perpetuated in that mystically magnificent badge of France, the female "Lily," or "Lis." All the proofs of this lie concealed in our Genealogy of the Fleur-de-Lis (p. 40, pp. 182, 183, et seq.; also post), and the "Flowers-deLuce," or the "Fleurs de-Lis," passim. It means 66 generation," or the vaunt realised of the Turkish Soldan, “Donec totum impleat orbem." The "Prince of Wales's Feathers " we believe to be, and to mean, the same thing as this sublime "Fleur-de-Lis." It resembles the object closely, with certain effectual, ingenious disguises. The origin of the

PRINCE OF WALES'S PLUME.

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Prince of Wales's plume is supposed to be the adoption of the king's crest (by Edward the Black Prince, at the battle of Cressy), on the discovery of the slain body of the blind King of Bohemia. Bohemia again !—the land of the "Fireworshipping Kings," whose palace, the Radschin, still exists on the heights near Prague. We believe the crest and the motto of the Prince of Wales to have been in use, for our Princes of Wales, at a much earlier period, and that history, in this respect, is perpetuating an error-perhaps an originally intended mistake. We think the following, which appears now for the first time, will prove this fact. Edward the Second, afterwards King of England, was the first Prince of Wales. There is reason to suppose that our valiant Edward the First, a monarch of extraordinary acquirements, was initiated into the knowledge of the abstruse Orientals. An old historian has the following: "On their giving" (i.e. the assembled Welsh) "a joyful and surprised assent to the King's demand, whether they would accept a king born really among them, and therefore a true Welshman, he presented to them his new-born son, exclaiming in broken Welsh, Eich_dyn!'-that is, 'This is your man!' —which has been corrupted into the present motto to the Prince of Wales's crest, 'Ich dien,' or 'I serve."" The meaning of "I serve," in this view, is, that "I" suffice, or "the Lis," or "the act," suffices (p. 46, and figures post), for all the phenomena of the world.

Brixworth Church, Northamptonshire.

Egyptian Amulet.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH.

PRISMATIC INVESTITURE OF THE MICROCOSM.

HE chemical dark rays are more bent than the luminous. The chemical rays increase in power as you ascend the spectrum, from the red ray to the violet. The chemical rays typified by the Egyptians under the name of their divinity, Taut or Thoth, are most powerful in the morning; the luminous rays are most active at noon (Isis, or abstractedly "manifestation"); the heating rays (Osiris) are most operative in the afternoon. The chemical rays are the most powerful in spring (germination, "producing," or "making "), the most luminous in the summer (ripening, or "knowing"), the most heating in the autumn (perpetuating). The chemical rays have more power in the Temperate Zone; the luminous and heating, in the Tropical. There are more chemical rays given off from the centre of the sun than from the parts near its circumference,

Each prismatic atom, when a ray of light strikes upon it, opens out on a vertical axis, as a radius or fan of seven different "widths" of the seven colours, from the least refrangible red up to the most refrangible violet. (Refer to diagram on next page.)

THE SEVEN COLOURS AND VOWELS.

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"The Egyptian Priests chanted the seven vowels as a

Fig. 32.

Fig. 32A.

hymn addressed to Serapis " (Eusebe-Salverte, Dionysius of Halicarnassus).

"The vowels were retained to a comparatively late period in the mystic allegories relative to the Solar System."

"The seven vowels are consecrated to the seven principal planets" (Belot, Chiromancie, 16th cent.)

The cause of the splendour and variety of colours lies Most Refrangible Ray.

Violet.

Indigo.-6.

Blue.-5.

Green.-4.

Yellow.-3.

Orange.-2.

Red.-1.

Least Refrangible Ray.

Fig. 33. PRISMATIC SPECTRUM.

deep in the affinities of nature. There is a singular and mysterious alliance between colour and sound. There are seven pure tones in the diatonic scale, because the harmonic octave is on the margin, or border, or rhythmic point, of the First and Seventh, like the chemical dark rays on the margin of the solar spectrum. (See explanatory chart of the Prismatic Colours above.)

Red is the deep bass vibration of ether. To produce the sensation of red to the eye, the luminous line must vibrate 477 millions of millions of times in a second. Blue, or rather purple, is the high treble vibration, like the upper C in music. There must be a vibration of 699 millions of millions in a second to produce it; while the cord that produces the high C must vibrate 516 times per second.

Heat, in its effect upon nature, produces colours and sounds. The world's temperature declines one degree at the height of 100 feet from the earth. There is a difference of one degree in the temperature, corresponding to each 1000 feet, at the elevation of 30,000 feet. Colouration is effected, at the surface of the earth, to the same amount in one minute that takes half an hour over three miles high, in the full rays of the sun. The dissemination of light in the atmosphere is wholly due to the aqueous vapour in it. The spectrum is gained from the sun. In the air opposite to it, there is no spectrum. These conclusions result from balloonobservations made in April 1863, and the philosophical deductions are a victory for "aqueous vapour.”

It has been demonstrated that flames are both sensitive and sounding; they have, therefore, special affinities.

"The author of the Nature and Origin of Evil is of opinion that there is some inconceivable benefit in Pain, abstractly considered; that Pain, however inflicted, or wherever felt, communicates some good to the General System of Being; and that every animal is some way or other the better for the pain of every other animal. This opinion he carries so far as to suppose that there passes some principle of union through all animal life, as attraction is communicated to all corporeal nature; and that the evils suffered on this globe may by some inconceivable means contribute to the felicity of the inhabitants of the remotest planet."-Contemporary Review of the Nature and Origin

of Evil.

"Without subordination, no created System can exist : all subordination implying Imperfection; all Imperfection, Evil; and all Evil, some kind of Inconveniency or Suffering."-Soame Jenyns: Free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil.

"Whether Subordination implies Imperfection may be disputed. The means respecting themselves may be as perfect as the end. The Weed as a Weed is no less perfect than the Oak as an Oak. Imperfection may imply primitive Evil, or the Absence of some Good; but this