On Aslro-alrnospher'ical Science. 135 



agency rendered the united efforts of ecclesiastical and civi' 

 power necessary to counteract and suppress it. 



If, instead of hearing that works of alchemy, &c. had been 

 without examination destroyed, we, in this enlightened age, pos- 

 sessed an opportunity of exploring all that is comprehended un- 

 der the denoMiination of occnlt sciences, we should be able to se- 

 parate the chaff from the wheat, and demonstrate the means by 

 which the fallaciousness of misconception, misinterpretation, cr 

 delusive artifice, had subjugated the minds of men. 



The progress whicli has in late years been made in Oriental 

 literature, encomages an expectation that the arroiv- headed 

 character and the symbolic represent al ions still found on the re- 

 maining monuments of remote ai^es, may yet be deciphered, and 

 serve to devolop many particulars relative to the knowledge of 

 the ancients in arts and sciences. 



Josephus says of the sons of Seth : " These were the first that 

 made their observations upon the motions of the heavens, the 

 courses and xnfiiience^ of the stars : ajid having been foretold by 

 Ad^m of a universal deluge and conflagration to come, they 

 erected two pillars, one of l^rick and the other of stone, \-iv\tA\ 

 thev were sure would be a proof, one or the other of them, 

 against either fire or water. Upon these pillars they engraved 

 the memorials of their discoveries and inventions, there to remain 

 for the benefit of ages to come ; and lest the tradition of the 

 science itself should be lost for want of a record." 



Thence, sir, we perceive that this mode of perpetuating in- 

 formation is of great antiquity ; and ^(i are led to infer that the 

 figures which still abound on ancient edifices, are not mere or- 

 naments, hwt the CHRONICLES of hi slorij -dm] philosophy, e\- 

 ecuted on a presumption that a key to their symhoky their hie- 

 roglyphics and \.\\e\\- characters, would be preserved. 



As the ruins of Pcrscpnlis and other temples indicate, by their 

 partially mouldered columns and mutilated works of sculpture, 

 t!ie grandeur of design in those who planned, and the admirable 

 skill of the artists who executed those edifices ; it may rationally 

 be inferred, that those adages of ancient philosophers which have 

 escaped the ravages of time, afford us evidence that the pre- 

 mises whence tiieir deductions were made, must have been the 

 result of long experience and solid judgement, founded on the 

 observations of natural plnlosophy aided by minute astronomical 

 and mathematical calculations.— But to return to 



AsTRO-METIiOROI.OGY. 



An infallible scale of the weather has not been produced in 

 modern times, nor is it to be expected without the concurrcijt 

 lestimonies of philosophers during a series ot years. 



i 4 None 



