HYDRAULICS.

HE lotos, suspended aloft in a thousand temples of India and Egypt as the picturesque symbol of that humid principle, which the emanation of the eternal beam, piercing the darkest recesses of the chaotic waters, animated and rendered prolific, demonstrates the strong traditional veneration for the aquatic element, which descended down to the generations of Asia from the first speculative race of human philosophers. Their conceptions concerning the union of these two grand principles, and the consequent generation of all things, were sometimes expressed by flames issuing from the calix of the lotos, sculptured in form of a vase, which indeed its natural shape greatly resembles; and, at others, that calix is encircled with a radiated crown of flames, just mounting above the burnished edge, to mark the superior energy of fire over water. This is the invariable meaning of the ancients, when either Brahma, Seeva, Osiris, or Horus, are portrayed sitting upon that sacred plant: they are only emblems of the solar fire warming and invigorating the chaotic waters. This their constant and immemorial deification of the ele

ment of water, and their profound admiration of the astonishing qualities possessed by it of pervading, cherishing, and dissolving all things, the effect of philosophical investigation, must necessarily and naturally have induced an acquaintance with many branches of Hydraulic science.

Indeed the doctrine of Thales, that is, of the Ionian school, aquam esse initium rerum, may be fairly said to have flourished in its vigour in the earliest post-diluvian sages. From the same traditional fountains, whence they obtained their information, Moses also acquired his knowledge in regard to this wonderful element; and from the Mosaic and Egpytian school it was diffused among the philosophers of Greece. From the extravagant honours which they paid to it, the first race of Indians seem to have considered water as the universal stamen, or grand elementary matter, out of which, by the aid of the igneous principle, all things proceeded and into which their physical researches shewed them they would all by putrefaction be again resolved. As it seemed to possess all the energetic properties of deity, they therefore exalted it to the rank of a divinity, and made it the object of their adorations. Now it can scarcely be credited, that those whose constant practice it was, (at least if we may form a

pre

judgment of their conduct by that of their sent progeny in blood and religion,) with holy enthusiasm, to explore springs and consecrated rivers, and whom necessity compelled to form vast tanks, for the purposes of agriculture, in the scorched regions of India; that those who were accustomed to hew out magnificent baths for superstitious ablutions; and who, though perhaps ignorant of the cause, witnessed the alternate swell and depression of the waters of the ocean, attracted by that moon whose resplendent orb they adored with scarcely less fervour than her radiant paramour, especially those of her philosophic race, who were situated nearer the tropical regions, where the tides rise with an awful elevation, or on the gulphs of the Ganges and Indus, the bore (as it is called) of which latter river rises often to the prodigious height of between twenty and thirty feet; and who had likewise surveyed and considered the stupendous column of suspended water in the phænomenon of the typhon, or water-spout, so common in equatorial climates; could be entirely ignorant of the properties and laws of FLUIDS. It is scarcely possible that those, who could wield with ease and skill the ponderous instruments of the forge, wanted either wisdom or vigour to fabricate many of the implements used in this branch of science,

although they might not possess the more powerful, stupendous, and complicated engines of modern times.

If what has been said above, relative to the knowledge of the Indians on this subject, should appear extravagant, I may safely shelter myself from censure under the opinion of many learned men among the moderns, who, from what the fathers of human science have delivered down to posterity concerning the chaotic state of things, and the universal fluid in which the earthy particles were suspended, have urged the high probability of the Newtonian doctrines, respecting gravity, fluidity, and centrifugal force, having been known in remotest antiquity, though afterwards, in the wreck of science and the revolution of empires, totally forgotten and lost, till revived again by that immortal philosopher. Indeed, we have seen this fact expressly asserted by Sir William Jones, in respect to the Indians, under the head of Astronomy.

The great distance of time, and the numerous revolutions that have befallen the Indian empire, added to the present deplorable ignorance of the Brahmins, leave us in doubt to what point in practice they carried their extended speculations in this branch of science: but that they were not merely theoretically

acquainted with it must be evident from one or two observations with which I shall conclude this head of enquiry

The great variety of artificial FOUNTAINS, some of vast magnitude, which the ancient sovereigns and great rajahs of India were accustomed to have in those extensive gardens in which they took such high delight, and the refreshing coolness of which was necessary to mitigate the heat of that burning climate, affords very evident proof that they were well acquainted with this science. They had observed that clouds, breaking on the summits of mountains, discharged upon them their watery treasures, which, sinking into the chinks and pores of the earth in those elevated regions, rushed forth with violence from their sides or at their base in the form of springs and fountains. The imitative genius of the Indian marked her plastic power, enlarged the sphere of speculation, and filled with fountains and jets d'eau the delicious gardens of Delhi and Agra.

But, independently of these their accurate observations of nature and her operations, they could scarcely fail of learning the great principles of hydraulic science, before the Indian empire was formed, from their Assyrian ancestors; from that Bali, or Belus, who stands nearly at the head of their great solar dynasty