8 Dr. Mac Culloch vti 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 Tyanseus, 

 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 Oxydracse, 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 Oxydracse 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 

 Oxydracse, its probability is confirmed by the very early know- 



