́staining them with the most beautiful colours, are all processes intimately connected with this science. Various kinds of dyed leather are repeatedly mentioned in the Institutes, and therefore they must also have known the method of tanning and colouring that commodity; and we have already mentioned the vivid and durable colours, particularly the red and the blue, for which their cottons and silks have been so famous in all ages; but these colours could not have been obtained, or so indelibly fixed, without a very high advance in chemistry. Their ability to obtain arrack and other intoxicating liquors by fermentation; their method of extracting sugar by coction, from the cane; of oils, unguents and essences, by distillation; or assaying and refining metals; of enamelling ; of lacquering; of gilding; of varnishing; of japanning; of making the finest porcelain; of fabricating artificial fire-works and gunpowder; are all so many direct proofs of what is here contended for. In short, trade, like agriculture, is indebted to chemistry for nearly all the various tools and utensils used in its innumerable branches; and without it, the painter, the potter, the sculptor, the carver and gilder, all the classes of working smiths whether in gold, silver, copper, or iron, the tin-man, the pewterer, the plumber, the glazier, the distiller, (and all these trades are

occasionally alluded to in the Institutes,) could not have pursued their respective occupations, those cccupations let it be still remembered, in which they were unchangeably fixed by the Indian legislator twelve or fourteen hundred years before Christ, when in most other countries CHEMISTRY was in a state of comparative infancy.

CHAPTER II.

HYDRAULICS.--The great Veneration paid by the Indian's to the aquatic Element, in great Part the Result of their physical Investigations into its Properties and Qualities -The Obligation they were under of forming vast Reservoirs, in various Regions of Hindostan, remote from the great Rivers, and of raising by PUMPS and conveying by CANALS the Waters to their Rice-Grounds, necessarily rendered them ac quainted with the Principles of this Science.Their Manufactures, also, especially their chemical Processes in Medicine, Distilling, and Dying, required SIPHONS and other hydraulic Machines.-PNEUMATICS.-This Science intimately connected with their mythological Superstition.-INDRA, VAYOO, and their stormy Attendants, only the ATMOSPHERIC Phænomena personified-The great Vicissitudes of Weather that take Place during the different Seasons in so vast an Empire and so varied a Climate; one Region chilled with the Snows of Caucasus, and the other parched with equatorial Fervors; The tremendous Tornado, and the pestilential Blast rendered the ancient Indians too well acquainted with those Phænomena. Their metallurgic Operations required the Aid

of vast BELLOWs for their Furnaces.-Their Mines could not have been explored and wrought without AIR-SHAFTS and other pneumatic Machines, nor without greatly enlarging their Knowledge in this Branch of Science, which they made useful in the Mysteries practised in their subterraneous Caverns.Probably not unacquainted with ELECTRICITY and MAGNETIC ATTRACTION.PAINTING.

-The exquisite Beauty of the Flowers and the brilliant Plumage of the Birds of Hindostan had the Effect to make the Indians PAINTERS in very early Periods, as well as to give them a decided Superiority over all the ancient World in the vivid Lustre of their DYES.—Their peculiar Method of PAINTING on COTTON described from Pliny and modern Authors.A short History of their SILK and COTTON Works. Their ancient Manufactures of PORCELAIN and COLOURED GLASS. Additional Observations on their SCULPTURE and ARCHI TECTURE.- ENGRAVING ON GEMS. high Antiquity of this Art in India.-The Kind of precious Stones principally selected for this Purpose, and the Devices engraved on them.

The

The infinite Variety and Neatness of their JEWELLERY and GOLD WORK.