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Show Page 251 After Orson's death, a congenial scientist, celebrated in his time, "gave it as his opinion that there were but four real mathematicians in the world, and Orson Pratt was one of them." Richard Anthony Proctor, himself more a popularizer of scientific "wonders" than a creative contributor, made this extravagant comment before a Salt Lake lecture audience in 1884; the Mormons, shearing this encomium to their revered polymath from such a well-known observer, must have gasped with satisfaction. Proctor had made his own reputation as an astronomer with his intriguing publications 31 on the Pyramids of Egypt and other "mysteries" connected with the heavens coincidentally, although Orson never encountered the famous Proctor, he too was tantalized by the ancient monuments of Egypt. In later years, he proposed that they had been constructed under divine direction. With his literalistic imagination, Orson began more and more to plumb the enigmas of a coded universe with mathematics, rather than philosophy, as his key. Though his mathematics were not of "high quality," he nevertheless broke ground as the first theoretician of the West; no one else in the region 32 came near his level of accomplishment in the physical and abstract sciences. After a final epistle "To the Saints in Great Britain," Orson left Liverpool on April 26, 1867, not to return for a decade. The old emigration office had become more a home to him than the eight households he had left in Utah more than three years before. Upon arrival in New York, he was forcefully reminded of the strict discipline Brigham Young maintained over the priesthood; a document withdrawing fellowship from Apostle Amasa Lyman awaited his signature in the mission offices. As each member of the Quorum had to give assent to such an action, Orson examined the case carefully. He himself had baptized the hapless Lyman over thirty-five years before in Vermont, had watched him take his own vacated seat in the Council |