Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1875 — Antiquity of Gunpowder. [ARTICLE]

Antiquity of Gunpowder.

With regard to the uncertainty as to the exact date at which gunpowder was utilized in war, Grose, who favors it with great antiquity, quotes the following ancient testimony iu “ Grey’s Gunnery,” printed in 1731: “In the ‘Life of Appollonius Tyanoeus,’ written by Philostratus about 1,500 years ago, there is the following passage concerning the people of India called Oxydra: 1 These truly wise men dwelt between the Rivers Hyphasis and Ganges; their country Alexander the Great never entered, deterred, sot by fear of the inhabitants, but, as I sup- - pose, by religious considerations; for, had he passed the Hyphasis, he might doubtless have made himself master of the country all round them; but their cities he could never have taken, though he had led 1,000 as brave as Achilles or 1,000 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, overthrow their enemies with tempests and thunderbolts shot from their walls. It is said that the Egyptian Hercules and Bacchus, when they overrun India, invaded this people also; and, having prepared warlike engines, attempted to conquer them; they made no show of resistance, but upon their enemies’ near approach to their cities they were repulsed with storms of lightning and thunderbolts, hurled upon them from above.’ Jn a book entitled ‘ The Gunner,’ printed in London in 1664, it is observed that Uffano states that * the invention and use, as well of ordnance as of gunpowder, was in the eighty-fifth year of our Lord made known and practiced in the great and ingenious Kingdom of China; and that in the maretyme provinces thereof there yet remain certain peaces of ordnance, both of iron and brasse, with the memory of their yeares of founding engraved upon them, and tiie arrnes of King Vitney, who, he saitli, was the inventor.’ ”