PYRAMID PYRENEES 107 generally speaking there is little of interest in the pyramids outside of Gizeh, Abusir, Sak- kara, and Dashoor. Pyramids are frequently met with in the upper part of the valley of the Nile. There are many in Nubia about lat. 17 and 18 N., the sepulchres of the monarchs of j Meroe and of Ethiopia ; a single group N. of Jebel Barkal comprises 120. Others are met with in other ancient countries of the East. At Birs Nimrud is the step-shaped pyramid built by Nebuchadnezzar of bricks of different colors, known as the temple of seven spheres. This was 235 ft. high with a perimeter of 2,286 ft. The same monarch built the pyramidal brick structure of Mujellibe at Babylon, the ruins of which still remain. At Benares in India are also the ruins of pyramids ; and others were built in ancient times at Peking, and again at Suka in Java. At Rome one was con- structed 20 or 30 years B. C., in honor of 0. Oestius, in imitation of the Egyptian monu- ments, and furnished with a sepulchral cham- ber; it is 120 ft. high on a base of 95 ft. di- ameter, built of hewn stone and marble-faced. In Mexico are similar structures far exceed- ing in the area they cover the dimensions even of the great pyramid of Egypt. These monu- ments, called teocallis, literally " houses of God," are pyramids in terraces with flat tops, and surmounted by a chamber or cell, which is the temple itself. They seem to be of all ages ; that of Cholula is, according to tradition, as early as the Toltecs, while the great teocalli of the city of Mexico was finished only five or six years before the discovery of America by Columbus. (See CHOLULA, and MEXICO, vol. xi., p. 483.) There are two pyramids at Teoti- huacan, the largest of which is apparently a square of 645 ft. with a height of 171 ft, and there are others at Tezcuco of about the same dimensions, and like them divided into five or seven stories; but the most interesting of those yet brought to light is that of Xochicalco, on account of its sculptures and architectural or- naments. There are in Mexico also numerous pyramids of one story, but, like that of Oajaca, they are only devices to raise a temple to such a height as would enable the people to witness the ceremonies performed around it. While Egyptian pyramids are always tombs, and ter- minate in a point, without steps leading to the apex, the Mexican are always temples, and in terraces, with the upper platform crowned by a chamber or cell. Similar to the latter were the Assyrian pyramids, and the object of their construction was the same. In fact this form of temple has been found from Mesopotamia to the Pacific ocean. The resemblance has given rise to many theories on the racial con- nection of the builders, and Fergusson says : " If we still hesitate to pronounce that there was any connection between the builders of the pyramids of Suku and Oajaca, or the tem- ples of Xochicalco and Boro Buddor, we must at least allow that the likeness is startling and difficult to account for on the theory of mere accidental coincidence." See Vyse's "Opera- tions carried on at Ghizeh in 1837 " (3 vols., London, 1840-'42), and Piazzi Smyth's "Life and Work at the Great Pyramid " (3 vols., Edinburgh, 1867). Excellent accounts of the Egyptian pyramids will be found also in Pro- kesch-Osten's Nilfahrt (Leipsic, 1874), and in the new edition of Brugsch Bey's Histoire dSfigypte (Leipsic, vol. i., 1875). PTRAMUS AND THISBE, a youth and maiden of Babylon, celebrated in Ovid's Me tarn orphoses. Their parents opposed their union, but the lovers, living in adjoining houses, found means to converse with each other through a hole in the wall, and once made an agreement to meet at the tomb of Ninus. There Thisbe arrived first, but, terrified by a lioness which had just torn to pieces an ox, she hid herself in a cave, and in her flight lost her mantle, which was rent by the lioness and soiled with blood. When Pyramus came and found the garment torn and bloody, he imagined that Thisbe had been killed, and thereupon fell upon his sword. When Thisbe returned and found the body of her lover, she slew herself with the same sword. This tragedy was enacted under a mulberry tree, the fruit of which, before white, has ever since been of the color of blood. PYRENEES (Celt, fyrin, a steep mountain), a mountain range of Europe, separating France from Spain, and extending from Capes Creus and Cervera on the Mediterranean to the S. E. angle of the bay of Biscay. The divisions of the two countries along the boundaries are, beginning at the east : in France, the depart- ments of Pyren6es-Orientales, Ari6ge, Haute- Garonne, Hautes-Pyren6es, and Basses-Pyre- n6es; in Spain, Catalonia, Aragon, Navarre, and Guipuzcoa. The Pyrenees form the east- ern half of the great northern barrier of the Iberian mountain system, their prolongation, the Cantabrian mountains, stretching to Cape Finisterre, the N. W. point of the peninsula. On the N. E. the Cevennes form a connecting link with the Alps. The direction of the chain is from S. S. E. to N. N. W. ; its length is about 250 m., and its greatest breadth, excluding some of the remoter slopes, about 70 m. Near the middle its axis is deflected by an elbow, so that the line of the western half, if prolonged, would run about 20 m. to the south of the eastern portion. The Pyrenees generally consist of two parallel main ridges, from which trans- verse spurs extend far on either side. The southern ridge is the more elevated. The chain is higher in the eastern than in the western portion, and attains its greatest altitude and extension in the centre. Here the double range encloses the valley of Arran, in which the Garonne takes its rise. Other streams break through the northern ridge, but the southern presents a vast unbroken wall. This main ridge lies S. of the political boundary, so that the loftiest peaks and most elevated passes belong to Spain. The highest summits are not found along this crest, but occupy projections
