314 Mr. Mallet on the Physical Conditions 



It appears, however, that an Arabic manuscript exists in the collection of the Escurial, 

 which unmistakably describes gunpowder and its properties, the date of which is anterior 

 to 1250. (Caseri, " Bib. Arab. Hispan." t. xi. p. 7.) 



The opinions of Spanish authors may be given in the words of Senderos (Elem. de 

 Artil.) : — " Es muy probable que la polvera se haya conocido por varies pueblos del Asia, 

 desde una grande antigiiedad, pero su invencion en Europa se atribuye generalmente al 

 quimlco Ingles Rogerio Bacon a principios del siglo xiii.'' 



The impression given by Bacon's account is not that of a man divulging a most sur- 

 prising and new discovery of his own, but of one referring to a discovery already made by 

 others, and known to him, though not, indeed, commonly known ; and it is remarkable 

 that all the earliest noticers of gunpowder and of artillery throughout Europe speak as of 

 something already known, and more or less in use here or there. The most probable case 

 seems to be, that both Bacon and Schwartz (the former clearly the earlier) were but the 

 learned divulgers of information derived from elsewhere. 



In attempting to trace back invention or discovery, we shall often obtain a broader 

 lifht (through the gloom of past ages) by endeavouring to refer the discovery and the 

 records of it into collation with the material conditions and substances upon which it 

 depended, as well as with the knowledge, manners, laws, polity, and traditions of the 

 period. 



Nitre, produced so sparingly in temperate climates as to excite scarcely any observation, 

 and to be with difficulty collected, has ever been the spontaneous production of India and 

 China, in such abundance as to challenge mankind to its examination and trial. Sulphur 

 (n'"'lE;), and coal, i. e. charcoal (cnE), are known and mentioned by their properties at the 

 early periods of Moses and the Book of Job.* The former, found abundantly in China and 

 throughout the volcanic regions of Syria, of Lake Baikal, and central Asia; the latter, tlie 

 necessary product of the extinction of the first fire of wood fuel — that which was (unless 

 we except naphtha and bitumen) the sole fuel of the East. That some explosive compound 

 of these widely scattered native products should have been early hit upon in these dry and 

 warm climes, and that the first observation of the phenomena should so powerfully arrest the 

 attention of races whose imaginations have ever leaned towards the mystical and marvellous, 

 seem almost inevitable ; and equally so, that all this may most probably have occurred at a 

 very early epoch of the worlds history. The earliest recorded notices, however (perhaps 

 Oriental scholars may know of others much anterior), seem to be those of Philostratus, 

 Themistius, and others, in relation to Alexander's campaigns in Asia, of some terrible 

 missile, simulating thunder and lightning, in the hands of the Oriental sages, the irre- 

 sistible power of which stopped the conqueror at the Hyphasis ; and all of which is condensed 

 into a few lines by Lord Bacon in his Essay " On the Vicissitude of Things," who thought 



* See Note, page 339. 



