Antiquity Of Gunpowder

With regard to the uncertainty as to the exact date at whioh gunpowder was utilized in war, Grose, who favors it with great antiquity, quotes the following ancient testimony ia Orey's Gunnery, printed in 1731: ' 'In the Life of Appollonius Tyanceas, witten by Philostratus about fifteen hundred years ago, there is the following passage concerning the people of India called Oxydra: 'These truly wise men dwelt between the Bivers Hyphasis and Ganges; their country Alexander the Great never entered, deterred, not by f ear 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 around there ; but their cities he could never have taken, though he had led a thousand as brave as Achules, or a thousand such as Ajax, to the aRsault ; for they come not out into the field to fight those who áttack them, but these holy men, beloved by the gods, overthrow their enemies with tempesta and thunderbolts shot from their walls. It is said that the Egyptian Hercúlea and Baochus, when they overran India, invaded thia people also ; and, having preparad warlike engines, attempted to conquertnem ; theymaaeno show of resistanoe, but upon the enemies' near approaoh to their citiea they were repulsed with storms of lightning and thunderbolts, hurled upon thein f rom above.' ín a book entitled The Ounncr, printed in London in 1664, it is observed that Uñano statea that 'the invention and use as well of ordinance as of gunpowder, was in the eighty-fifth year of our Lord niade known and practioed in the great and ingenious Kiugdom of China ; and that in the maretyme provincea thereof aere yet rernain certain peaces of oí dnance, both of iron and brasse, with the memory of their yeared of founding engraved upon them." A translation of the "Pilgrim's Progresa" has been issued by a native Japanese publisher. The vernacular literature of Japan is extending at a rapid rate, adaptationa of the best Engliah text books on geography and phyaical science being published almost monthly, and though far from being perfect produotions, attaining a wide circulation. J apáñese writers have the greatest difflculty in finding accurate equivalents in their own language for European diacoveries and scientific terms. They are almost always obliged to paraphrase ; thus dynamite becomes "the powerf uithing," torpedo "under-water burster," and ao on. The great evil is that each different ■writer chooses his own paraphrase foi auch terms as "polarizaron," "spectroscope," "protoplasm," &c.