1822.] Rev. Mr. Conybeare on the Greek Fire. 435 
of your chemical and antiquarian readers. They will be found 
to contain some notices which (so far as my reading extends) 
have escaped the observation of former inquirers, and I have 
endeavoured to render them as concise as possible. 
Fully agreeing with Dr. Macculloch that more than one sub- 
stance may have been used and described under this name, and 
that in all probability we are ultimately indebted to the east for 
the knowledge both of these compounds, and of gunpowder, I 
would still venture to suggest on the latter point that our 
acquaintance with Indian and Chinese literature (great and cre- 
ditable as it is to our learned countrymen) has not yet made 
such advances as to entitle us to quote even with tolerable con- 
fidence, documents, in the languages of those regions, pretend- 
ing to remote antiquity. The critical tests which have been so 
rigorously and successfully exercised on the classical remains of 
Greece and Rome, have been as yet but sparingly applied to the 
examination of the Sanscrit and the Chinese. Our orientalists, 
like the scholars of the fifteenth century, have been employed 
in the more important task of mastering the difficult and obso- 
lete dialects of their new empire; in searching out, collecting, 
and making public, the materials for future criticism; but at 
present we can scarcely hope to separate with any precision 
that which is fictitious or interpolated from that which is genuine 
and uncorrupted ; and the almost uniform tone of oriental litera- 
ture is such as in truth to induce all sober inquirers to lean much 
to the side of caution. There is also, as Dr. M. observes, a 
fabulous air about the Indian story related by Philostratus (a 
writer in no case of very high authority). I would suggest too 
that it bears every appearance of being a direct imitation of the 
more classical tale which records the protection twice afforded 
to the sanctuary of Delphi by its tutelary god, first against the 
Persian, and in later times against the Celtic invaders. Hero- 
dotus and Diodorus Siculus relate the former, and Pausanias the 
latter. If these accounts be not altogether fabulous, it seems 
probable that the sacred College of Delphi possessed the secret 
of fabricating some powerfully explosive compound. The Gre- 
cian Camden describes the continued thunders and lightnings, 
destroying not, as usual, single individuals only, but burning 
and injuring all who stood within reach. These were accompa- 
nied by repeated shocks of earthquakes (earthquakes, it will be 
recollected, were also among the prodigies of the Eleusinian 
mysteries). Immense masses of rock were launched, he tells 
us, upon the aggressors, wherever collected in any numbers, 
asat a mark, “ cxonoy tous BapBapous ayov.” As this took place 
during the night, it might indeed have been done by mere 
mechanical force, the Greeks profiting by the cover of darkness ; 
but a warm fancy might, from the words quoted, conclude at 
once that, if not artillery, some means were used which enabled 
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