bordering on the Aurea Chersonesus. Still however, in the great trading cities of Europe, gold and silver were comparatively scarce, and continued so, till a series of success, as unexpected as unmerited, opened to the Spaniards the vast storehouses of these metals in America, whence the golden deluge has never since ceased to flow into their ports; and, being thence diffused through the courts and palaces of Europe, has given them the appearance of Asiatic splendour, and fixed on the heads of her august sovereigns diadems more brilliant than those that anciently sparkled on the brow of the great Shah of Persia, or the magnificent Mogul of India. END OF THE DISSERTATION ON THE IM- A DISSERTATION, &c. CHAPTER I. General Account of the SANSCREET Language, Grammar, and Alphabet.— The high Antiquity and wide Diffusion of that Language over the Eastern Region of Asia.-An Investigation of the SCIENCES of the Brahmins, not hitherto discussed in the Indian Antiquities. AsTRONOMY, necessarily cultivated, in the remotest Periods, by a Race devoted to Agriculture, and immemorially addicted to the SABIAN SUPERSTITION. A retrospective Survey of the great Outlines of this Science, as anciently known in India.-GEOMETRY proved to have flourished among them, from its connection with the former Science in its advanced State, as well as from their massy Style of Architecture, &c. &c.-MEDICINE,-the Devotion ofthe ancient Indians to BOTANICAL Researches. |