28 Dr. Mac Culloch on the 
printing; an invention far more likely 'to have attracted and 
excited the attention of a literary people. 
In Grey’s Gunnery, printed in London in 1731, the following 
passage is found, deduced from the life of Apollonius Tyanzus, 
by Philostratus. ‘‘ These truly wise men dwell between the 
Hyphasis and the Ganges; their country Alexander never en- 
tered; deterred, not by fear of the inhabitants, but, as I suppose, 
by religious considerations: for had he passed the Hyphasis, 
he might doubtless have made himself master of the country all 
round; but these cities he never could have taken, though he 
had led a thousand as brave as Achilles, or three thousand 
such as Ajax, to the assault; for they come not out to the field 
to fight those who attack them; but these holy men, beloved 
by the gods, overthrow their enemies with tempests and thun- 
derbolts shot from their walls. It is said, that the Egyptian 
Hercules and Bacchus, when they over-ran India, invaded this 
people also, and having prepared warlike engines, attempted to 
conquer them ; they, in the mean time, made no shew of resist- 
ance, appearing perfectly quiet and secure; but upon the 
enemy’s near approach, they were repulsed with lightning and 
thunderbolts hurled on them from above.” These people were 
the Oxydrace, and the period of Alexander is 355 years before 
the Christian era. 
Here then is a record of the very early use of some kind of 
fire-work; whether of ordnance, is more doubtful. It is more 
probable that this story alludes to some kind of rocket, the very 
rocket of modern India, perhaps, which would fulfil the condi- 
tion both of lightning and thunderbolts. 
This strange history of the Oxydracee will render more easy 
of belief that which is related of the use of gunpowder, and even 
of ordnance in China, at a very early period; a time no less dis- 
tant than 85 years after the birth of Christ; and an invention 
which, if admitted, would, as already suggested, prove the much 
earlier knowledge of the less difficult kinds of pyrotechny. 
If there is somewhat of the air of fable in this story of the 
Oxydracz, its probability is confirmed by the very early know- 
