3: Mahawanso, ch. xxxvii. p. 242-245.
Botany.—The fact that the basis of their Materia Medica has been chiefly derived from the vegetable kingdom, coupled with the circumstance that their clothing and food were both drawn from the same source, may have served to give to the Singhalese an early and intimate knowledge of plants. It was at one time believed that they were likewise possessed of a complete and general botanical arrangement; but MOON, whose attention was closely directed to this subject, failed to discover any trace of a system; and came to the conclusion that, although well aware of the various parts of a flower, and their apparent uses, they have never applied that knowledge to a distribution of plants by classes or orders.[1]
1: MOON'S Catalogue of Indigenous and Exotic Plants growing in Ceylon. 4to. Colombo, 1824, p. 2.
Geometry.—The invention of geometry has been ascribed to the Egyptians, who were annually obliged to ascertain the extent to which their lands had been affected by the inundations of the Nile, and to renew the obliterated boundaries. A similar necessity led to like proficiency amongst the people of India and Ceylon, the minute subdivision of whose lands under their system of irrigation necessitated frequent calculations for the definition of limits and the division of the crops.[1]
1: The "Suriya Sidhanta," generally assigned to the fifth or sixth century, contains a system of Hindu trigonometry, which not only goes beyond anything known to the Greeks, but involves theorems that were not discovered in Europe till the sixteenth century.—MOUNT-STUART ELPHINSTONE'S India, b. iii. ch. i. p. 129.
Lightning Conductors.—In connection with physical science, a curious passage occurs in the Mahawanso which gives rise to a conjecture that early in the third century after Christ, the Singhalese had some dim idea of the electrical nature of lightning, and a belief, however erroneous, of the possibility of protecting their buildings by means of conductors.
The notices contained in THEOPHRASTUS and PLINY show that the Greeks and the Romans were aware of the quality of attraction exhibited by amber and tourmaline.[1] The Etruscans, according to the early annalists of Borne, possessed the power of invoking and compelling thunder storms.[2] Numa Pompilius would appear to have anticipated Franklin by drawing lightning from the clouds; and Tullus Hostilius, his successor, was killed by an explosion, whilst attempting unskilfully the same experiment.[3]
1: The electrical substances "lyncurium" and "theamedes" have each been conjectured to be the "tourmaline" which, is found in Ceylon.
2: "Vel cogi fulmina vel impetrari." —PLINY, Nat. Hist. lib. ii. ch. lii.
3: Ibid. There is an interesting paper on the subject of the knowledge of electricity possessed by the ancients, by Dr. FALCONER in the Memoirs of the Manchester Philosophical Society, A.D. 1788, vol. iii. p. 279.