But the god of air and of sunlight (Shu) raised the sky, and set it
as a vault over the earth. The fixed constellations which we know
form as it were an impression, like that of a seal on wax, of the
earth, and when the learned study the stars, they can find out the
unknown parts of our earth. Look at the constellations which you
know. In the north the Great Bear; in the south, at a certain season
of the year, the Hunter (Orion), with four stars at the corners and
three stars in the middle. These three we Hebrews call Jacob's
Staff, and through the uppermost of them passes the sky-gauge or
equator, which corresponds to the earth-gauge where the sources
of our Nile are said to be.

"You know also the constellation which we specially love--the River
(Nile). Look, how it flees from the Hunter (Orion), and makes as
many windings as the Nile here on earth. Therefore he who wishes to
learn the hidden secrets of earth must learn them from the sky. Our
wise men know only the lands which lie towards the east; but those
which lie in the north under the Great Bear are unknown to us, as
also are the lands towards the west. But it looks as though the
lands of the Bear had great destinies assigned to them. Their
numbers are four and three, like those of the Hunter. Three
represents the Divine with its attributes, four denotes the most
perfect possible: three and four together form the mysterious number
seven. To gods sacrifices are offered with the unequal number, three;
to men, with the equal number four.

"This is about all that I have cursorily understood of the secrets
of the sky. If you now wish to understand some of the secrets of the
earth, let us consider the tombs of the Pharaohs. These, apart from their
ostensible purposes of being tombs, have also a hidden one