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450 the pitchers and lanterns would not have done the work without 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 Atianteans possessed the secret of this powerful explosive.

A rebellion sprang up in Atlantis (see Murray's "Manual 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