GUNPOWDER. 179 



inhabitants, but, as I suppose, by religious considerations, for 

 had lie passed the Hyphasis he might doubtless have made him- 

 self master of the country all round them ; but their cities he 

 could never 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 into the field to fight those who attack them, 

 but these holy men, beloved by the gods, overthrew their ene- 

 mies with tempests, and thunderbolts 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 made no shew 

 of resistance, but upon the enemies near approach to their cities, 

 they were repulsed with storms of lightning and thunderbolts, 

 hurled upon them from above." 



Our countryman, Friar Bacon, whose works were written at 

 Oxford about the year 1270, fifty years before the supposed in- 

 vention by Schwartz, has expressly named the ingredients ofgtm- 

 powder as a well-known composition used for recreation, and de- 

 scribes it as producing a noise like thunder, and flashes like 

 lightning, but more terrible than those produced by nature, and 

 adds, this might be applied to the destruction of an enemy by 

 sea and land : Bacon acquired this composition from a treatise 

 on artificial fire works, written by one Marcus Grcecus ; the 

 manuscript is still extant, and is quoted by the Reverend Mr* 

 Dutens, in order to prove that gunpowder was known to the 

 ancients ; the composition therein prescribed is, two pounds of 

 charcoal, one pound of sulphur, and six pounds of saltpetre, well 

 pounded and mixed together in a stone mortar ; this is a better 

 mixture for powder than many late in use. 



Bishop Watson, in his Chemical Essays, remarks, that the 

 history of the discovery of gunpowder is involved in much ob- 

 scurity ; the most ancient authors differing from each other in 

 their accounts of this matter ; and many of them confounding 



