Symbolica
The Letter G

The Letter G

The Divine as the central motif, with Fire in a secondary part. From Masonic Chart.

Jeremy L. Cross, compiler; engraved by Amos Doolittle, 1826 printing, first published 1819. Engraving.

No known copyright restrictions, 1826 printing · Web copy 870 by 1400 px · Internet Archive, Library of Congress copy, leaf 36

What is happening

Jeremy L. Cross, 1826 “G.” The True Masonic Chart, or Hieroglyphic Monitor, the single letter blazing in the glory over the master's chair.

Symbolica, 2026 Plate 16 of the chart, in the Master Mason degree. Cross prints no lecture on this plate and no scripture is read against it. The absence was looked for rather than assumed: the whole of the Master Mason degree, pages 35 to 41 was read against the page images of the monitor, and Thomas Smith Webb's Freemason's Monitor of 1808, which Cross's chart illustrates, is silent in the same place. This is a part of the work that was never printed. The picture was published and the words that went with it were carried by mouth.

Key · 2 motifs

The motifs the picture carries, filed by role. The marks on the picture itself come with the entry.

  1. 1The Divinecentral motif as it reads here: The Letter G
  2. 2Firesecondary motif

The picture

A curtained archway opening on a lodge room, the letter G blazing in a glory over the master seated at his table. By eye

Not yet decoded: the motifs are tagged by eye and the readings above are quoted from their sources. The marks on the picture and the sourced notes come with the entry.

Also carrying the Divine

39 works carry it. The 6 where it is the central motif are here. The symbol.

Where the detail is the subject

Fire

This is in the picture without being what it is about. Below, one work that is about it.

In the same series

The True Masonic Chart, 1819

Record

Source
Internet Archive, Library of Congress copy, leaf 36
Rights
No known copyright. The book was printed in 1826 and the holding institution records no known copyright restriction on its copy.
Restoration
The Library of Congress copy was photographed flat: this plate reached the archive with neither a true black nor a true white, and the engraved hatching read as grey fog. One black and one white point were set for all three channels together, read off the plate's own darkest and lightest tones, which deepens the ink and leaves the paper the colour it is. The per-channel version of the same correction, used on the painted plates of 1928, was rejected here because on ink and paper it also neutralises the paper. Saturation untouched. The web copy is made from the archive's cut of the page, so the correction is never applied twice. Nothing coloured, painted, sharpened or upscaled. A 870 by 1400 pixel web copy made from the source file; nothing painted, nothing upscaled.
Series
The True Masonic Chart, 1819
Artist
Jeremy L. Cross, masonic lecturer of New Hampshire and Connecticut, 1783 to 1860, who compiled the chart and its monitor; the plates were engraved by Amos Doolittle of New Haven
Titled here
The Letter G. Internet Archive catalogues it as: The Letter G, from The True Masonic Chart, New Haven 1826
Checked
the Internet Archive item metadata, 4 September 2026: Cross as author, New Haven, 1826, contributed by the Library of Congress, which states it is unaware of any copyright restrictions. Doolittle's signature is engraved on some plates and the attribution of the rest to him follows the book's own title. What is quoted was read off the plate; the monitor's lectures are quoted where the printed monitor carries them, read against the page images of pages 16, 17 and 38 to 41; where the monitor is silent the record says so. Not seen in the hand.
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Cite
Symbolica, “The Letter G”, Jeremy L. Cross, compiler; engraved by Amos Doolittle, 1826 printing, first published 1819. thesymbolica.com/work/the-letter-g/