ticular regard to order, but the four arms of the cross, nevertheless, severally and accurately point to the cardinal quarters. The same regularity is observable on a much smaller but not less curious monument, which was discovered some time since in an ancient Peruvian huaca or catacomb—namely, a syrinx, or pandean pipe, cut out of a solid mass of lapis ollaris, the sides of which are profusely ornamented, not only with Maltese crosses, but also with other symbols very similar in style to those inscribed on the obelisks of Egypt and on the monoliths of this country. The like figure occurs on the equally ancient Otrusco black pottery. But by far the most remarkable example of this form of the Cross in the New World is that which appears on a second type of the Mexican feroher, engraved on a tablet of gypsum, and which is described at length by its discoverer, Captain du Paix, and depicted by his friend, M. Baradère. Here the accompaniments—a shield, a hamlet, and a couple of bead-annulets or rosaries—are, with a single exception, identical in even the minutest particular with an Assyrian monument emblematical of the Deity.…
No country in the world can compare with India for the exposition of the pyramidal cross. There the stupendous labors of Egypt are rivalled, and sometimes surpassed. Indeed, but for the fact of such monuments of patient industry and unexampled skill being still in existence, the accounts of some others which have long since disappeared, having succumbed to the ravages of time and the fury of the bigoted Mussulman, would sound in our ears as incredible as the story of Porsenna's tomb, which 'o'ertopped old Pelion,' and made 'Ossa like a wart.' Yet something not very dissimilar in character to it was formerly the boast of the ancient city of Benares, on the banks of the Ganges. We allude to the great temple of Bindh Madhu, which was demolished in the seventeenth century by the Emperor Aurungzebe. Tavernier, the French baron, who travelled thither about the year 1680, has preserved a brief description of it. The body of the temple was constructed in the figure of a colossal cross (i. e., a St. Andrew's Cross), with a lofty dome at the centre, above which rose a massive structure of a pyramidal form. At the four extremities of the cross there were four other pyramids of proportionate dimensions, and which were ascended from the outside by steps, with balconies at stated distances for places of rest, reminding us of the temple
