ftitious horror the bursting volcano, the aurora borealis, and other terrific meteors; he foon learned himself to roll the thunder and launch the lightning of Jove; he ftole fire from heaven, and lighted up, in the laboratory, a creation of his own. The latter matured the projects and realized the hopes of the philofopher. By practical chemistry he extended the bounds of mechanic science, he widened the field of commerce, and ftrengthened the bands of focial intercourse. A variety of proofs of this kind have been already adduced. A few more, and a general fummary of what has been obferved on this head, fhall now be added, and conclude this article. Like the Phoenicians, their rivals in whatever concerned trade and the arts, the Indians had arrived at confiderable excellence in making glass, vafa murrina, or murrbins, a fpecies of elegant porcelain, much in requeft among the higher order of Romans, and artificial gems of various colours, which were often fraudulently impofed on strangers for genuine ones. They were alfo celebrated for their curious work in horn and ivory, and their being able to foften down those hard fubftances fubftances to receive impreffions of Avatars and other figures, their inlaying them with different precious ftones, and staining them with the most beautiful colours, are all proceffes intimately connected with this science. Various kinds of dyed leather are repeatedly mentioned in the Inftitutes, 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 filks have been fo famous in all ages; but these colours could not have been obtained, or fo indelibly fixed, without a very high advance in chemistry. Their ability to obtain arrack and other intoxicating liquors by fermentation; their method of extracting fugar, by coction, from the cane; of oils, unguents, and effences, by diftillation; of 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 fo many direct proofs of what is here contended for. In fhort, trade, like agriculture, is indebted to chemistry for nearly all the various tools and utenfils used in its innumerable branches; and, without it, the painter, the potter, the sculptor, the carver, and gilder, all the claffes of working fmiths, whether in gold, filver, copper, or iron, the tin-man, the pewterer, the plumber, the glazier, the distiller, (and all these trades are occafionally alluded to in the Inftitutes,) could not have pursued their respective occupations; those occupations, let it be ftill remembered, in which they were unchangeably fixed by the Indian legiflator twelve or fourteen hundred years before Chrift, when in most other countries CHEMISTRY was in a state of comparative infancy. CHAP CHAPTER II. HYDRAULICS. The great Veneration paid by the Indians to the aquatic Element, in great Part the Refult of their phyfical Investigations into its Properties and Qualities. The Obligation they were under of forming vaft ReJervoirs, in various Regions of Hindoftan, remote from the great Rivers, and of raifing by PUMPS and conveying by CANALS the Waters to their Rice-Grounds, necessarily rendered them acquainted with the Principles of this Science. Their Manufactures, also, especially their chemical Processes in Medicine, Diftilling, and Dying, required SIPHONS and other hydraulic Machines. PNEUMATICS. -This Science intimately connected with their mythological Superftition. —INDRA, VAYOO, and their ftormy Attendants, only the ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA perfonified. The great Viciffitudes of Weather that take Place during the different Seafons in fo vaft an Empire and fo varied a Climate; one Region chilled with the Snows of Caucafus, and the other |