tion Library. An enlarged edition was
published in Europe. (Dillingen, 1687.)

[4] On the contrary, he considered the photographs interesting, as showing
to how late a period the art of fine casting had endured.

[5] This ancient instrument is probably the same that is engraved in
Pauthier's _Chine Ancienne_ under the title of "The Sphere of the
Emperor Shun" (B.C. 2255!).

[6] After the death of Kublai astronomy fell into neglect, and when
Hongwu, the first Ming sovereign, took the throne (1368) the subject
was almost forgotten. Nor was there any revival till the time of
Ching. The latter was a prince who in 1573 associated himself with the
astronomer Hing-yun-lu to reform the state of astronomy. (_Gaubil_.)

What Ricci has recorded (in Trigautius) of the dense ignorance of the
Chinese _literati_ in astronomical matters is entirely consistent with
the preceding statements.

[7] I had entirely forgotten to look at Trigault till Mr. Wylie sent me
the extract. The copy I use (_De Christiana Expeditione apud Sinas ...
Auct. Nicolao Trigautio_) is of _Lugdun_. 1616. The first edition was
published at _August. Vindelicorum_ (Augsburg) in 1615: the French, at
Lyons, in 1616.

[8] "Pinnulis."

[9] "_Et stilus eo modo quo in horologiis ad perpendiculum collocatus_."

[10] The _Alidada_ is the traversing index bar which carries the
_dioptra_, _pinnules_, or sight-vanes. The word is found in some older
English Dictionaries, and in France and Italy is still applied to the
traversing index of a plane table or of a sextant. Littre derives it
from (Ar.) _'adad_, enumeration; but it is really from a quite
different word, _al-idadat_ [Arabic] "a door-post," which is found in
this sense in an Arabic treatise on the Astrolabe. (See _Dozy and
Engelmann_, p. 140.)

[11] This is an error of Ricci's, as Mr. Wylie observes, or of his
reporter.

The Chinese divide their year into 24 portions of 15 days each.
Of these 24 divisions twelve called _Kung_ mark the twelve places in
which the sun and moon come into conjunction, and are thus in some
degree analogous to our 12 signs of the Zodiac. The names of these
_Kung_ are entirely different from those of our sign, though since the
17th century the Western Zodiac, with paraphrased names, has been
introduced in some of their books. But besides that, they divide the