Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1882-11-16
KNOWLEDGE OF THE ANCIENTS.


We talk of modern progress :; we gaze with
pride upon this invention and that, which we
fondly believe originated in our day and gen.
Grafton; we consider ourselves, in fact, Sm
qeneris. So short sighted are we, or so heed
less, that we fail to acknowledge our debts to
the past. The railroad dates back to Egypt,
says Wendell Phillips, and AragO claims that
they had knowledge of steam. Humboldt in
his Cosmos saws that the Chinese 1000
years before our era had magnetic carriages
with which to guide themselves across the
great plains of Tartary, on the principle of the
compass The Romans used movable types ;
a magnifying lens of rock crystal with true
optical lense-the origin Of the microscope
was found in Ninevah ; experiments foreshad-
owing photography to be made more than
three centuries ago, the principle of the stereo-
scope was known to Euclid, modern tunnel
ing was anticipated by that under the
Euphrates at Babylon. Aristotle's mental
philosophy has hardly received any new sug-
gestiOns or marked improvements from mod
ern thinkers. SO-called spiritual manifesto
tons, such as table turning and spirit writing,
have been practiced in China from time i'm
memorial before Confucius was born. Egyp-
tan sculpture and hieroglyphs demonstrate
the existence of mesmerism in those early
uilHS. tt Sietii
ant-''a man in trance with his eyes opened"
A man appeared before Aristotle who could
read on one side of a brazen shield what was
written on the other. Plautus in one of his
plays says: "What and although l were by
my continual slow touch to make him as if
asleep % The principles of FOurierism are
discussed in the '''Confessions of Augustine.
Even the iced cobblers, upon which we pride
ourselves as original conc0tors, were described
several centuries ago "a cup of snow water
into which was sprinkled sugar, and mixed
with it the juice of grape" Marcus Aurelius
was in favor of free government-to use his
own words-"the idea of polity in which
there is the same law for all, polity admin
istered with regard to equal rights and equal
freedom of speech, and the idea of klngly
government which respects most of all the free
dom of the governed" In Pompeii, during
the process of exhumation, room was found
filled with glass of every descriptiOn-cut,
ground and stained. The Neapolitans were
ceverer in their limitations than we are to-day.
Their glass gems deceived the most practiced
eyes, and the celebrated vase Of the Geneva
Cathedral, which was considered solid en-
erald, according to the legend was the gift OF
Sheba's Queen to King Solomon, and the cup
out of which the Saviour ate his last supper,
was discovered to be no precious stone at all,
only a clever, wonderful imitation. Leather
cut in ornamental designs for wall decora-
tions were found in Pompeii. Table draperles
embroidered in applique were discovered in
the tombs Of Egyptian queens. Spectacles
and several magnifying glasses must have
been used as far back as Ninevahs proud
reign; how otherwise could an entire treatise
on mathematics be engraved on stone twen-
ty inches long and ten wide? Cicero said he
had seen the entire Ilad written on a skin, 50
that it could be rolled up in the compass of Il
nutshell, the writing of course 80 fine as to be
indistinguisllable to the naked eye! The Pom
pean red glows as richly to-day as when put
on by the artist who lived when Christ was
born. Nero's retreat, built over fifteen hun
dred years ago, flashes out the undimmed
colors of it's painted walls, when modern light
is admitted, while our pictures and raiment
fade during the lifetime of a generation,
Damascus blades are as perfect to-day AS when
they came from the makers hands, eight CEN
turies ago, yet our steel must be gilded before
it can stand the atmosphere of Asia. We eat
dessicated fruits and fish and meat, with the
pleased assurance that the process is an out
growth of Yankee ingenuity but in the tomb
of the Ptolemies was found the dessicated
liver of the great woman Pharaoh of the eigh-
teenth dynasty Washington Republic.