Since publicity was first given to my large, wooden pyramid some three years ago, I have been inundated with letters, phone calls and personal visits. People from all walks of life and many different places in North America and Europe and indeed a few from further a field--Australia, Africa and the East Indies--all have evinced an interest and have given me kind encouragement. Many of these letters, calls and visits have had as their objective the garnering of practical information on the building of pyramids and the problems likely to be encountered.

Had I sat down and answered the inquiries in detail, I would have been vastly further behind with the business of erecting and planting crops in the pyramid than I am even now, so I have been promising one and all that in the near future I would put the whole thing down on paper. I want to do this in the simplest manner so that not only youngsters but also those whose mother tongue is not English will be able to understand and build similar edifices for themselves.

To begin then, my pyramid is made from rough lumber, cut on and near my own property and milled by a neighbor. Ut it is not necessary for pyramids to be made of wood. As I said earlier, they can be made of any rigid material [that will support permanent glazing]: cardboard, strong wire, sheet steel or metal, angle irons, logs-- anything that will not curve [and that can be precisely measured and fitted--ED].

Nor do they have to be solid for many uses; open-sided shapes will do, so long as all corners are joined and the angles are correct. My present pyramid us made of lumber covered by heavy-gauge plastic. Future ones will be sheathed in fiberglass, [or Plexiglas or solid glass--ED] They will be closed pyramids solely because I propose to grow food during the depths of Canada's frigid winters.

My pyramid frame is built mainly of wood measuring two inches by four inches and two inches by eight inches undressed, that is, unplanned.

Pyramids can be built to any scale as long as the proportions correspond to those of the Cheops Pyramid. It is most important that the angles be correct. Here are some basic measurements for a variety of sizes:

Editor's Note

Here are calculations for some typical sizes that will work in harmony with a "basement apartment" foundation for the pyramid greenhouse.

Come on. Do the work with me. Take out a fresh piece of printer/copier paper and take hold of one corner, and fold it across diagonally, so its edge forms a perfect right triangle; then do the same with the opposite corner. When you are done you have a piece of paper with a perfect "X" folded into it. That's where we begin.

Now take a ruler--cms--and slide it up-and-down the sheet making certain it is always perfectly parallel with the bottom edge of the paper.

With centimeters in mind, align your ruler [perfectly parallel with the bottom edge] until you have arrived at the point where 0 cms is on one of the legs of the "x" and 14.5 cms is on the other leg of the "x." Take a scribe or pen or pencil and draw that line from x0 to x14.5. Copy that line three more times, parallel to each edge of the paper until you have a square 14.5 cms on a side. [If you used "inches," you'd have to find a much larger piece of paper.] Scribe the 14.5 sq square on all four of its sides, then in half from both directions, so you now have four squares of 7.25cms each, all perfectly equal. Be careful.

Now measure one of the diagonals of one of the four squares. In centimeters, it should be exactly TEN. For a 29unit [foot/rod/yard] pyramid, the HEIGHT must equal TEN units. Mark off TEN centimeters on the line that you choose to be your vertical and that point becomes your Apex.

NOW Draw a line from your APEX [the top] down to the base [side], and you have a SIDE [apothem] which is exactly TWELVE AND A HALF centimeters. The design in mind is 29 units, twice the 14.5 units you began with, so multiply each result by exactly two. Your VERTICAL height/rise then is 20 and your apothem is 25.

Why does this come out so even? Because we started with a prime number, 29. Starting with a base of "prime number" will give a height and apothem/side in even values so you don't have to figure tiny fractions, decimals or small units.

The basement apartment plan I have used as an example has a 31 foot base at the point where the glass attaches to the base. That measurement is "holy." It has to be perfect. The height must be exactly 22 feet from grade-to-apex, where the four side surfaces come together at the top. And each side panel [of glass or plastic-on- frame] must measure precisely 25 feet [0 inches 0 fractions of an inch] from the connection at the apex to its mount on the foundation, a precise 51 degrees, 51 minutes, 14 seconds angle. Keep your dimensions perfect, your angles will be perfect. If you want it to work properly, this is the way it's got to be.

If you are utilizing a 29', 31' or 37' base dimension, you can fit a very comfortable basement apartment under it. This apartment will be served by the greenhouse, not only as a source of food but also as a source of breathable air.

Grounding

The base, in order to transmit energy properly through the pyramid, must be constructed as a Faraday cage, electrically connected to ground at every point on the foundation. As a practical matter this is very simple. Before you pour concrete base or lay concrete blocks in row-by-row, be sure there is plenty of metal reinforcing rods pounded into the ground, lots of metal shavings, junk pieces, metal auto parts, old hardware mixed in, laid in, poured in with the concrete, so it conducts energy readily to ground. This will also keep "electrosmog" at bay.