THE ANTIQUITY OF SOME OF OUR GREAT INVENTIONS.
It may seem like a flight of the imagination to suppose that the
mariner's compass was known to the inhabitants of Atlantis. And yet, if
my readers are satisfied that the Atlantean were a highly civilized
maritime people, carrying on commerce with regions as far apart as Peru
and Syria, we must conclude that they possessed some means of tracing
their course in the great seas they traversed; and accordingly, when we
proceed to investigate this subject, we find that as far back as we may
go in the study of the ancient races of the world, we find them
possessed of a knowledge of the virtues of the magnetic stone, and in
the habit of utilizing it. The people of Europe, rising a few centuries
since out of a state of semi-barbarism, have been in the habit of
claiming the invention of many things which they simply borrowed from
the older nations. This was the case with the mariner's compass. It was
believed for many years that it was first invented by an Italian named
Amalfi, A.D. 1302. In that interesting work, Goodrich's "Life of
Columbus," we find a curious history of the magnetic compass prior to
that time, from which we collate the following points:
"In A.D. 868 it was employed by the Northmen." ("The Landnamabok," vol.
i., chap. 2.) An Italian poem of A.D. 1190 refers to it as in use among
the Italian sailors at that date. In the ancient language of the
Hindoos, the Sanscrit--which has been a dead language for twenty-two
hundred years--the magnet was called "the precious stone beloved of
Iron." The Talmud speaks of it as "the stone of attraction;" and it is
alluded to in the early Hebrew prayers as Kalamitah, the same name given
it by the Greeks, from the reed upon which the compass floated. The
Phoenicians were familiar with the use of the magnet. At the prow of
their vessels stood the figure of a woman (Astarte) holding a cross in
one hand and pointing the way with the other; the cross represented the
compass, which was a magnetized needle, floating in water crosswise upon
a piece of reed or wood. The cross became the coat of arms of the
Phoenicians--not only, possibly, as we have shown, as a recollection of
the four rivers of Atlantis, but because it represented the secret of
their great sea-voyages, to which they owed their national greatness.
The hyperborean magician, Abaras, carried "a guiding arrow," which
Pythagoras gave him, "in order that it may be useful to him in all
difficulties in his long journey." ("Herodotus," vol. iv., p. 36.)
The magnet was called the "Stone of Hercules." Hercules was the patron
divinity of the Phoenicians. He was, as we have shown elsewhere, one of
the gods of Atlantis--probably one of its great kings and navigators.
The Atlanteans were, as Plato tells us, a maritime, commercial people,
trading up the Mediterranean as far as Egypt and Syria, and across the
Atlantic to "the whole opposite continent that surrounds the sea;" the
Phoenicians, as their successors and descendants, and colonized on the
shores of the Mediterranean, inherited their civilization and their
maritime habits, and with these that invention without which their great
voyages were impossible. From them the magnet passed to the Hindoos, and
from them to the Chinese, who certainly possessed it at an early date.
In the year 2700 B.C. the Emperor Wang-ti placed a magnetic figure with
an extended arm, like the Astarte of the Phoenicians, on the front of
carriages, the arm always turning and pointing to the south, which the
Chinese regarded as the principal pole. (See Goodrich's "Columbus," p.
31, etc.) This illustration represents one of these chariots:
In the seventh century it was used by the navigators of the Baltic Sea
and the German Ocean.
CHINESE MAGNETIC CAR
The ancient Egyptians called the loadstone the bone of Haroeri, and iron
the bone of Typhon. Haroeri was the son of Osiris and grandson of Rhea,
a goddess of the earth, a queen of Atlantis, and mother of Poseidon;
Typhon was a wind-god and an evil genius, but also a son of Rhea, the
earth goddess. Do we find in this curious designation of iron and
loadstone as "bones of the descendants of the earth," an explanation of
that otherwise inexplicable Greek legend about Deucalion "throwing the
bones of the earth behind him, when instantly men rose from the ground,
and the world was repeopled?" Does it mean that by means of the magnet
he sailed, after the Flood, to the European colonies of Atlantis,
already thickly inhabited?
A late writer, speaking upon the subject of the loadstone, tells us:
"Hercules, it was said, being once overpowered by the heat of the sun,
drew his bow against that luminary; whereupon the god Phoebus, admiring
his intrepidity, gave him a golden cup, with which he sailed over the
ocean. This cup was the compass, which old writers have called Lapis
Heracleus. Pisander says Oceanus lent him the cup, and Lucian says it
was a sea-shell. Tradition affirms that the magnet originally was not on
a pivot, but set to float on water in a cup. The old antiquarian is
wildly theoretical on this point, and sees a compass in the Golden
Fleece of Argos, in the oracular needle which Nero worshipped, and in
everything else. Yet undoubtedly there are some curious facts connected
with the matter. Osonius says that Gama and the Portuguese got the
compass from some pirates at the Cape of Good Hope, A.D. 1260. M.
Fauchet, the French antiquarian, finds it plainly alluded to in some old
poem of Brittany belonging to the year A.D. 1180. Paulo Venetus brought
it in the thirteenth century from China, where it was regarded as
oracular. Genebrand says Melvius, a Neapolitan, brought it to Europe in
A.D. 1303. Costa says Gama got it from Mohammedan seamen. But all
nations with whom it was found associate it with regions where Heraclean
myths prevailed. And one of the most curious facts is that the ancient
Britons, as the Welsh do to-day, call a pilot llywydd (lode).
Lodemanage, in Skinner's 'Etymology,' is the word for the price paid to
a pilot. But whether this famous, and afterward deified, mariner
(Hercules) had a compass or not, we can hardly regard the association of
his name with so many Western monuments as accidental."
Hercules was, as we know, a god of Atlantis, and Oceanos, who lent the
magnetic cup to Hercules, was the name by which the Greeks designated
the Atlantic Ocean. And this may be the explanation of the recurrence of
a cup in many antique paintings and statues. Hercules is often
represented with a cup in his hand; we even find the cup upon the handle
of the bronze dagger found in Denmark, and represented in the chapter on
the Bronze Age, in this work. (See p. 254 ante.)
So "oracular" an object as this self-moving needle, always pointing to
the north, would doubtless affect vividly the minds of the people, and
appear in their works of art. When Hercules left the coast of Europe to
sail to the island of Erythea in the Atlantic, in the remote west, we
are told, in Greek mythology (Murray, p. 257), that he borrowed "the
cup" of Helios, in (with) which "he was accustomed to sail every night."
Here we seem to have a reference to the magnetic cup used in night
sailing; and this is another proof that the use of the magnetic needle
in sea-voyages was associated with the Atlantean gods.
ANCIENT COINS OF TYRE
Lucian tells us that a sea-shell often took the place of the cup, as a
vessel in which to hold the water where the needle floated, and hence
upon the ancient coins of Tyre we find a sea-shell represented.
Here, too, we have the Pillars of Hercules, supposed to have been placed
at the mouth of the Mediterranean, and the tree of life or knowledge,
with the serpent twined around it, which appears in Genesis; and in the
combination of the two pillars and the serpent we have, it is said, the
original source of our dollar mark [$].
COIN FROM CENTRAL AMERICA
Compare these Phoenician coins with the following representation of a
copper coin, two inches in diameter and three lines thick, found nearly
a century ago by Ordonez, at the city of Guatemala. "M. Dupaix noticed
an indication of the use of the compass in the centre of one of the
sides, the figures on the same side representing a kneeling, bearded,
turbaned man between two fierce heads, perhaps of crocodiles, which
appear to defend the entrance to a mountainous and wooded country. The
reverse presents a serpent coiled around a fruit-tree, and an eagle on a
hill." (Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iv., p. 118.) The mountain leans
to one side: it is a "culhuacan," or crooked mountain.
We find in Sanchoniathon's "Legends of the Phoenicians" that Ouranus, the
first god of the people of Atlantis, "devised Bætulia, contriving stones
that moved as having life, which were supposed to fall from heaven."
These stones were probably magnetic loadstones; in other words, Ouranus,
the first god of Atlantis, devised the mariner's compass.
I find in the "Report of United States Explorations for a Route for a
Pacific Railroad" a description of a New Mexican Indian priest, who
foretells the result of a proposed war by placing a piece of wood in a
bowl of water, and causing it to turn to the right or left, or sink or
rise, as he directs it. This is incomprehensible, unless the wood, like
the ancient Chinese compass, contained a piece of magnetic iron hidden
in it, which would be attracted or repulsed, or even drawn downward, by
a piece of iron held in the hand of the priest, on the outside of the
bowl. If so, this trick was a remembrance of the mariner's compass
transmitted from age to age by the medicine men. The reclining statue of
Chac-Mol, of Central America, holds a bowl or dish upon its breast.
Divination was the ars Etrusca. The Etruscans set their temples squarely
with the cardinal points of the compass; so did the Egyptians, the
Mexicans, and the Mound Builders of America. Could they have done this
without the magnetic compass?
The Romans and the Persians called the line of the axis of the globe
cardo, and it was to cardo the needle pointed. Now "Cardo was the name
of the mountain on which the human race took refuge from the Deluge...
the primitive geographic point for the countries which were the cradle
of the human race." (Urquhart's "Pillars of Hercules," vol. i., p. 145.)
From this comes our word "cardinal," as the cardinal points.
Navigation.--Navigation was not by any means in a rude state in the
earliest times:
"In the wanderings of the heroes returning from Troy, Aristoricus makes
Menelaus circumnavigate Africa more than 500 years before Neco sailed
from Gadeira to India." ("Cosmos," vol. ii., p. 144.)
"In the tomb of Rameses the Great is a representation of a naval combat
between the Egyptians and some other people, supposed to be the
Phoenicians, whose huge ships are propelled by sails." (Goodrich's
"Columbus," p. 29.)
The proportions of the fastest sailing-vessels of the present day are
about 300 feet long to 50 wide and 30 high; these were precisely the
proportions of Noah's ark--300 cubits long, 50 broad, and 30 high.
"Hiero of Syracuse built, under the superintendence of Archimedes, a
vessel which consumed in its construction the material for fifty
galleys; it contained galleries, gardens, stables, fish-ponds, mills,
baths, a temple of Venus, and an engine to throw stones three hundred
pounds in weight, and arrows thirty-six feet long. The floors of this
monstrous vessel were inlaid with scenes from Homer's 'Iliad.'" (Ibid.,
p. 30.)
The fleet of Sesostris consisted of four hundred ships; and when
Semiramis invaded India she was opposed by four thousand vessels.
It is probable that in the earliest times the vessels were sheeted with
metal. A Roman ship of the time of Trajan has been recovered from Lake
Ricciole after 1300 years. The outside was covered with sheets of lead
fastened with small copper nails. Even the use of iron chains in place
of ropes for the anchors was known at an early period. Julius Cæsar
tells us that the galleys of the Veneti were thus equipped. (Goodrich's
"Columbus," p. 31.)
Gunpowder.--It is not impossible that even the invention of gunpowder
may date back to Atlantis. It was certainly known in Europe long before
the time of the German monk, Berthold Schwarz, who is commonly credited
with the invention of it. It was employed in 1257 at the siege of
Niebla, in Spain. It was described in an Arab treatise of the thirteenth
century. In A.D. 811 the Emperor Leo employed fire-arms. "Greek-fire" is
supposed to have been gunpowder mixed with resin or petroleum, and
thrown in the form of fuses and explosive shells. It was introduced from
Egypt A.D. 668. In A.D. 690 the Arabs used fire-arms against Mecca,
bringing the knowledge of them from India. In A.D. 80 the Chinese
obtained from India a knowledge of gunpowder. There is reason to believe
that the Carthaginian (Phoenician) general, Hannibal, used gunpowder in
breaking a way for his army over the Alps. The Romans, who were ignorant
of its use, said that Hannibal made his way by making fires against the
rocks, and pouring vinegar and water over the ashes. It is evident that
fire and vinegar would have no effect on masses of the Alps great enough
to arrest the march of an army. Dr. William Maginn has suggested that
the wood was probably burnt by Hannibal to obtain charcoal; and the word
which has been translated "vinegar" probably signified some preparation
of nitre and sulphur, and that Hannibal made gunpowder and blew up the
rocks. The same author suggests that the story of Hannibal breaking
loose from the mountains where he was surrounded on all sides by the
Romans, and in danger of starvation, by fastening firebrands to the
horns of two thousand oxen, and sending them rushing at night among the
terrified Romans, simply refers to the use of rockets. As Maginn well
asks, how could Hannibal be in danger of starvation when he had two
thousand oxen to spare for such an experiment? And why should the
veteran Roman troops have been so terrified and panic-stricken by a lot
of cattle with firebrands on their horns? At the battle of Lake
Trasymene, between Hannibal and Flaminius, we have another curious piece
of information which goes far to confirm the belief that Hannibal was
familiar with the use of gunpowder. In the midst of the battle there
was, say the Roman historians, an "earthquake;" the earth reeled under
the feet of the soldiers, a tremendous crash was heard, a fog or smoke
covered the scene, the earth broke open, and the rocks fell upon the
heads of the Romans. This reads very much as if the Carthaginians had
decoyed the Romans into a pass where they had already planted a mine,
and had exploded it at the proper moment to throw them into a panic.
Earthquakes do not cast rocks up in the air to fall on men's heads!
And that this is not all surmise is shown by the fact that a city of
India, in the time of Alexander the Great, defended itself by the use of
gunpowder: it was said to be a favorite of the gods, because thunder and
lightning came from its walls to resist the attacks of its assailants.
As the Hebrews were a branch of the Phoenician race, it is not surprising
that we find some things in their history which look very much like
legends of gunpowder.
When Korah, Dathan, and Abiram led a rebellion against Moses, Moses
separated the faithful from the unfaithful, and thereupon "the ground
clave asunder that was under them: and the earth opened her mouth, and
swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained
unto Korah, and all their goods.... And there came out a fire from
the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered
incense.... But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of
Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed
the people of the Lord." (Numb. xvi., 31-41.)
This looks very much as if Moses had blown up the rebels with gunpowder.
Roger Bacon, who himself rediscovered gunpowder, was of opinion that the
event described in Judges vii., where Gideon captured the camp of the
Midianites with the roar of trumpets, the crash caused by the breaking
of innumerable pitchers, and the flash of a multitude of lanterns, had
reference to the use of gunpowder; that the noise made by the breaking
of the pitchers represented the detonation of an explosion, the flame of
the lights the blaze, and the noise of the trumpets the thunder of the
gunpowder. We can understand, in this wise, the results that followed;
but we cannot otherwise understand how the breaking of pitchers, the
flashing of lamps, and the clangor of trumpets would throw an army into
panic, until "every man's sword was set against his fellow, and the host
fled to Beth-shittah;" and this, too, without any attack upon the part
of the Israelites, for "they stood every man in his place around the
camp; and all the host ran and cried and fled."
If it was a miraculous interposition in behalf of the Jews, the Lord
could have scared the Midianites out of their wits without the smashed
pitchers and lanterns; and certain it is the pitchers and lanterns
would not have done the work with out a miraculous interposition.
Having traced the knowledge of gunpowder back to the most remote times,
and to the different races which were descended from Atlantis, we are
not surprised to find in the legends of Greek mythology events described
which are only explicable by supposing that the Atlanteans possessed the
secret of this powerful explosive.
A rebellion sprang up in Atlantis (see Murray's "Mannal of Mythology,"
p. 30) against Zeus; it is known in mythology as the "War of the
Titans:"
"The struggle lasted many years, all the might which the Olympians could
bring to bear being useless, until, on the advice of Gæa, Zeus set free
the Kyklopes and the Hekatoncheires" (that is, brought the ships into
play), "of whom the former fashioned thunder-bolts for him, while the
latter advanced on his side with force equal to the shock of an
earthquake. The earth trembled down to lowest Tartarus as Zeus now
appeared with his terrible weapon and new allies. Old Chaos thought his
hour had come, as from a continuous blaze of thunder-bolts the earth
took fire, and the waters seethed in the sea. The rebels were partly
slain or consumed, and partly hurled into deep chasms, with rocks and
hills reeling after them."
Do not these words picture the explosion of a mine with a "force equal
to the shock of an earthquake?"
We have already shown that the Kyklopes and Hekatoncheires were probably
great war-ships, armed with some explosive material in the nature of
gunpowder.
Zeus, the king of Atlantis, was known as "the thunderer," and was
represented armed with thunder-bolts.
Some ancient nation must, in the most remote ages, have invented
gunpowder; and is it unreasonable to attribute it to that "great
original race" rather than to any one people of their posterity, who
seem to have borrowed all the other arts from them; and who, during many
thousands of years, did not add a single new invention to the list they
received from Atlantis?
Iron.--have seen that the Greek mythological legends asserted that
before the submergence of the great race over whom their gods reigned
there had been not only an Age of Bronze but an Age of Iron. This metal
was known to the Egyptians in the earliest ages; fragments of iron have
been found in the oldest pyramids. The Iron Age in Northern Europe far
antedated intercourse with the Greeks or Romans. In the mounds of the
Mississippi Valley, as I have shown, the remains of iron implements have
been found. In the "Mercurio Peruano" (tom. i., p. 201, 1791) it is
stated that "anciently the Peruvian sovereigns worked magnificent iron
mines at Ancoriames, on the west shore of Lake Titicaca." "It is
remarkable," says Molina, "that iron, which has been thought unknown to
the ancient Americans, had particular names in some of their tongues."
In official Peruvian it was called quillay, and in Chilian panilic. The
Mound Builders fashioned implements out of meteoric iron. (Foster's
"Prehistoric Races," p. 333.)
As we find this metal known to man in the earliest ages on both sides of
the Atlantic, the presumption is very strong that it was borrowed by the
nations, east and west, from Atlantis.
Paper.--The same argument holds good as to paper. The oldest Egyptian
monuments contain pictures of the papyrus roll; while in Mexico, as I
have shown, a beautiful paper was manufactured and formed into books
shaped like our own. In Peru a paper was made of plantain leaves, and
books were common in the earlier ages. Humboldt mentions books of
hieroglyphical writings among the Panoes, which were "bundles of their
paper resembling our volumes in quarto."
Silk Mannfacture.--The manufacture of a woven fabric of great beauty out
of the delicate fibre of the egg-cocoon of a worm could only have
originated among a people who had attained the highest degree of
civilization; it implies the art of weaving by delicate instruments, a
dense population, a patient, skilful, artistic people, a sense of the
beautiful, and a wealthy and luxurious class to purchase such costly
fabrics.
We trace it back to the most remote ages. In the introduction to the
"History of Hindostan," or rather of the Mohammedan Dynasties, by
Mohammed Cassim, it is stated that in the year 3870 B.C. an Indian king
sent various silk stuffs as a present to the King of Persia. The art of
making silk was known in China more than two thousand six hundred years
before the Christian era, at the time when we find them first possessed
of civilization. The Phoenicians dealt in silks in the most remote past;
they imported them from India and sold them along the shores of the
Mediterranean. It is probable that the Egyptians understood and
practised the art of manufacturing silk. It was woven in the island of
Cos in the time of Aristotle. The "Babylonish garment" referred to in
Joshua (chap. vii., 21), and for secreting which Achan lost his life,
was probably a garment of silk; it was rated above silver and gold in
value.
It is not a violent presumption to suppose that an art known to the
Hindoos 3870 B.C., and to the Chinese and Phoenicians at the very
beginning of their history--an art so curious, so extraordinary--may
have dated back to Atlantean times.
Civil Government.--Mr. Baldwin shows ("Prehistoric Nations," p. 114)
that the Cushites, the successors of the Atlanteans, whose very ancient
empire extended from Spain to Syria, were the first to establish
independent municipal republics, with the right of the people to govern
themselves; and that this system was perpetuated in the great Phoenician
communities; in "the fierce democracies" of ancient Greece; in the
"village republics" of the African Berbers and the Hindoos; in the "free
cities" of the Middle Ages in Europe; and in the independent governments
of the Basques, which continued down to our own day. The Cushite state
was an aggregation of municipalities, each possessing the right of
self-government, but subject within prescribed limits to a general
authority; in other words, it was precisely the form of government
possessed to-day by the United States. It is a surprising thought that
the perfection of modern government may be another perpetuation of
Atlantean civilization.
Agriculture.--The Greek traditions of "the golden apples of the
Hesperides" and "the golden fleece" point to Atlantis. The allusions to
the golden apples indicate that tradition regarded the "Islands of the
Blessed" in the Atlantic Ocean as a place of orchards. And when we turn
to Egypt we find that in the remotest times many of our modern garden
and field plants were there cultivated. When the Israelites murmured in
the wilderness against Moses, they cried out (Numb., chap. xi., 4, 5),
"Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did eat
in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the
onions, and the garlic." The Egyptians also cultivated wheat, barley,
oats, flax, hemp, etc. In fact, if we were to take away from civilized
man the domestic animals, the cereals, and the field and garden
vegetables possessed by the Egyptians at the very dawn of history, there
would be very little left for the granaries or the tables of the world.
Astronomy.--The knowledge of the ancients as to astronomy was great and
accurate. Callisthenes, who accompanied Alexander the Great to Babylon,
sent to Aristotle a series of Chaldean astronomical observations which
he found preserved there, recorded on tablets of baked clay, and
extending back as far as 2234 B.C. Humboldt says, "The Chaldeans knew
the mean motions of the moon with an exactness which induced the Greek
astronomers to use their calculations for the foundation of a lunar
theory." The Chaldeans knew the true nature of comets, and could
foretell their reappearance. "A lens of considerable power was found in
the ruins of Babylon; it was an inch and a half in diameter and
nine-tenths of an inch thick." (Layard's "Nineveh and Babylon," pp.
16, 17.) Nero used optical glasses when he watched the fights of the
gladiators; they are supposed to have come from Egypt and the East.
Plutarch speaks of optical instruments used by Archimedes "to manifest
to the eye the largeness of the sun." "There are actual astronomical
calculations in existence, with calendars formed upon them, which
eminent astronomers of England and France admit to be genuine and true,
and which carry back the antiquity of the science of astronomy, together
with the constellations, to within a few years of the Deluge, even on
the longer chronology of the Septuagint." ("The Miracle in Stone," p.
142.) Josephus attributes the invention of the constellations to the
family of the antediluvian Seth, the son of Adam, while Origen affirms
that it was asserted in the Book of Enoch that in the time of that
patriarch the constellations were already divided and named. The Greeks
associated the origin of astronomy with Atlas and Hercules, Atlantean
kings or heroes. The Egyptians regarded Taut (At?) or Thoth, or
At-hotes, as the originator of both astronomy and the alphabet;
doubtless he represented a civilized people, by whom their country was
originally colonized. Bailly and others assert that astronomy "must have
been established when the summer solstice was in the first degree of
Virgo, and that the solar and lunar zodiacs were of similar antiquity,
which would be about four thousand years before the Christian era. They
suppose the originators to have lived in about the fortieth degree of
north latitude, and to have been a highly-civilized people." It will be
remembered that the fortieth degree of north latitude passed through
Atlantis. Plato knew ("Dialogues, Phædo," 108) that the earth "is a
body in the centre of the heavens" held in equipoise. He speaks of it as
a "round body," a "globe;" he even understood that it revolved on its
axis, and that these revolutions produced day and night. He
says--"Dialogues, Timæus"--"The earth circling around the pole (which is
extended through the universe) be made to be the artificer of night and
day." All this Greek learning was probably drawn from the Egyptians.
Only among the Atlanteans in Europe and America do we find traditions
preserved as to the origin of all the principal inventions which have
raised man from a savage to a civilized condition. We can give in part
the very names of the inventors.
Starting with the Chippeway legends, and following with the Bible and
Phoenician records, we make a table like the appended:
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The Invention or Discovery. | The Race. | The Inventors. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| Fire | Atlantean | Phos, Phur, and Phlox. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The bow and arrow | Chippeway | Manaboshu. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The use of flint | " | " |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The use of copper | " | " |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The manufacture of bricks | Atlantean | Autochthon and Technites. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| Agriculture and hunting | " | Argos and Agrotes. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| Village life, and the | " | Amynos and Magos. |
| rearing of flocks | | |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The use of salt | " | Misor and Sydyk. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The use of letters | " | Taautos, or Taut. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| Navigation | " | The Cabiri, or Corybantes. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The art of music | Hebrew | Jubal. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| Metallurgy, and the use of | " | Tubal-cain. |
| iron | | |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The syrinx | Greek | Pan. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| The lyre | " | Hermes. |
+------------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
We cannot consider all these evidences of the vast antiquity of the
great inventions upon which our civilization mainly rests, including the
art of writing, which, as I have shown, dates back far beyond the
beginning of history; we cannot remember that the origin of all the
great food-plants, such as wheat, oats, barley, rye, and maize, is lost
in the remote past; and that all the domesticated animals, the horse,
the ass, the ox, the sheep, the goat, and the hog had been reduced to
subjection to man in ages long previous to written history, without
having the conclusion forced upon us irresistibly that beyond Egypt and
Greece, beyond Chaldea and China, there existed a mighty civilization,
of which these states were but the broken fragments.