[1243] Commentationes, p. 145. Recueil des Questions, &c., p. 231.
[1244] Such things were known to Aristotle. See Mirab. Ausc. c. 146.
[1245] Dissertat. de Igne Græco. Upsaliæ, 1752.
[1246] De Subtilitate, xiii. 3. p. 71. ed. Francof. 1612, 8vo.
[1247] De Mirabilibus Mundi, p. 201; at the end of the book De Secretis Mulierum. Amst. 1702, 12mo.
[1248] Liber Ignium ad Comburendos Hostes, auctore Marco Græco; ou, Traité des Feux propres à détruire les Ennemies, composé par Marcus le Grec. Publié d’après deux manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale. Paris, 1804, three sheets in quarto.
[1249] Biblioth. Arab. Hisp. Escurial, ii.
[1250] See the works quoted in Fabricii Bibliograph. Antiquar. p. 978. In the year 1798, M. Langles proved, in a paper read in the French National Institute, that the Arabians obtained a knowledge of gunpowder from the Indians, who had been acquainted with it in the earliest periods. The use of it in war was forbidden in their sacred books, the Veidam or Vede. It was employed in 690 at the battle of Mecca.
[1251] The following may be advantageously consulted:—Archæologia, v. p. 148; Henry’s Hist. of Great Britain, vol. iv.; Muratori Antiq. Italiæ Medii Ævi, ii. p. 514; Watson’s Chemical Essays, i. pp. 284, 327; Histoire de France, par Velly, xvi. p. 330; Dow’s Hist. of Hindostan, vol. ii.; Erdbeschreibung der entferntesten Welttheile, ii. p. 159; Stettler Schweitzer Chronik. p. 109. The inhabitants of Berne purchased the first gunpowder from the people of Nuremberg in 1413.
[1252] A fragment from the writings of Synesius was printed, for the first time, in Frabricii Bibliotheca Græca, viii. p. 236, where the words occur.