[Symbol:  jupiter] Denotes half the matter of tin to be silver, the other a crude corrosive acid, which is accordingly confirmed by the assayers; tin proving almost as fixed as silver in the cupel, and discovering a large quantity of crude sulphur well known to the alchemists.

[Symbol:  saturn] Denotes almost the whole to be corrosive, but retaining some resemblance with silver, which the artists very well know holds true of lead.

[Symbol:  earth] Denotes a chaos—­world, or one thing which includes all:  this is the character of antimony, wherein is found gold, with plenty of an arsenical corrosive.

The symbols, or at least some of them, may be traced even in the Chinese characters for gold, silver, &c.

The connection of Egypt with India shortly after the Christian era is distinctly indicated in the works of Apuleius.  He lived in the early part of the second century after Christ, and was educated first at Carthage, then renowned as a school of literature.  He then travelled extensively in Greece, Asia, and Egypt, and became initiated into many religious fraternities and an adept in their mysteries.  He was admitted a priest of the order of AEsculapius, and describes the ceremony of the offering of the first-fruits by the priests of Isis, when the navigation opened in spring.  The vessel, which was to be set adrift upon the ocean freighted with the offering, was splendidly decorated and covered with hieroglyphics, and after having been “purified with a lighted torch, an egg, and sulphur,” was allowed to sail away into the unknown as a sacrifice to procure the safety of the convoy of ships which would soon after start upon their voyage.  These rites were of great antiquity.

He speaks, in his first tale, of a witch who, by means of her magic charms, made not only her fellow-countrymen love her, but “the Indians even,” and in his initiation into the mysteries of Isis, his robes “bore pictures of Indian serpents.”

From what I have now laid before you, in what must necessarily be a very imperfect manner, you will see that there is good reason to believe that in the study of science and philosophy the Indian races were much in advance of the Western nations.  The age of science amongst them is very great; we fail utterly in trying to find its beginning, unless we accept the tradition which ascribes to Menu, their great lawgiver (who is supposed to have been Noah), the saving of three out of the four divine books or Vedas from the deluge.  This would carry us back to the Antediluvian times for the beginning of our investigations; but without taking any such extreme view of the subject we will find traces of science clearly marked out for us in the history of the Indian races.

The picture of the Brahmins, drawn by Apuleius in the second century, shows how little they have changed in historical times.  He says:—­

“The Indians are a populous nation of vast extent of territory, situated far from us to the east, near the reflux of the ocean and the rising of the sun, under the first beams of the stars, and at the extreme verge of the earth, beyond the learned Egyptians and the superstitious Jews and the mercantile Nabathaeans; and the flowing robed Aracidae, and the Ityraeans, poor in crops, and the Arabians, rich in perfumes.