ld you, my dear Atterley, that I was born and
educated at Benares, and that science is there more thoroughly
understood and taught than the people of the west are aware of. We
have, for many thousands of years, been good astronomers, chymists,
mathematicians, and philosophers. We had discovered the secret of
gunpowder, the magnetic attraction, the properties of electricity,
long before they were heard of in Europe. We know more than we have
revealed, and much of our knowledge is deposited in the archives of
the castle to which I belong, but, for want of language generally
understood and easily learnt, (for these records are always written in
the Sanscrit, that is no longer a spoken language,) and the diffusion
which is given by the art of printing, these secrets of science are
communicated only to a few, and sometimes even sleep with their
authors, until a subsequent discovery, under more favourable
circumstances, brings them again to light.

"It was at this seat of science that I learned, from one of our sages,
the physical truth which I am now about to communicate, and which he
discovered, partly by his researches into the writings of ancient
Pundits, and partly by his own extraordinary sagacity. There is a
principle of repulsion as well as gravitation in the earth. It causes
fire to rise upwards. It is exhibited in electricity. It occasions
water-spouts, volcanoes, and earthquakes. After much labour and
research, this principle has been found embodied in a metallic
substance, which is met with in the mountain in which we are, united
with a very heavy earth, and this circumstance had great influence in
inducing me to settle myself here.

"This metal, when separated and purified, has as great a tendency to
fly off from the earth, as a piece of gold or lead has to approach it.
After making a number of curious experiments with it, we bethought
ourselves of putting it to some use, and soon contrived, with the aid
of it, to make cars and ascend into the air. We were very secret in
these operations, for our unhappy country having then recently fallen
under the subjection of the British nation, we apprehended that if we
divulged our arcanum, they would not only fly away with all our
treasures, whether found in palace or pagoda, but also carry off the
inhabitants, to make them slaves in their colonies, as their
government had not then abolished the Afric