Regarding this theory, therefore, as untenable, I put forward as a suggestion that the ancients really sailed to the west or to the south.
As, for the most part, those who were left behind were ignorant, rude, and unlettered, it consequently happened that many of the marvellous things which the ancients did, and the secrets of their science, are known to us by name only, and, indeed, hardly by name.

It has happened to us in our turn as it happened to the ancients.

For they were aware that in times before their own the art of making glass malleable had been discovered, so that it could be beaten into shape like copper.

But the manner in which it was accomplished was entirely unknown to them; the fact was on record, but the cause lost.

So now we know that those who to us are the ancients had a way of making diamonds and precious stones out of black and lustreless charcoal, a fact which approaches the incredible.