Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c11.12

c11.12

If then that book were written before telescopes were in use in Europe, and that is ascertainable, then telescopes were things in common use, before we had any ideas of them; and tho they are not described as being such as Dollond has since made, they were telescopes, and amongst those who even now mention telescopes occasionally, how few will describe those exquisite ones, that are applied to astronomical purposes. That useful inventions perish, in time, have we not instances enough. The mummies suffice; tho even in our own days have we not seen Dollond perfect telescopes, by the addition of three object glasses, and are we not in danger of losing them again, from the want of the materials to make one of the kinds of glass used by him? Gun powder is also thought to be, as I may call it, compared with great antiquity, a modern invention; and yet in Gray’s Gunnery, there is a quotation from a Greek author, that gives reason enough to suppose, it was applied to guns, even in the time of Alexander.