SCIENCE AMONG THE CHINESE 527 



B.C. to a.d 1621. The general value of these records is thought to 

 entitle them to credence. 



While these observations of eclipses and comets were made for 

 astrological and state purposes, they are not without value to European 

 astronomers and chronologists. It would not be entirely safe to judge 

 of the astronomical attainments of the Chinese from what has come 

 down to our day, or by present popular notions. The knowledge con- 

 tained in their own scientific books has not been taught, and in general 

 the astronomical ideas of the Chinese are vague and inaccurate and 

 serve as the basis of superstitious astrology rather than as an agency 

 of enlightenment among the people. The writer vividly recalls his 

 experience during a recent lunar eclipse, when almost the entire popu- 

 lation of one of the largest cities on the Yangtsze turned out, each one 

 carrying something with which to make a noise, kettles, pans, sticks, 

 drums, gongs, fire-crackers, etc., to aid in frightening away the dragon 

 of the sky from his hideous feast. And even the crew of a Chinese 

 man-of-war, foreign built and armed with Krupp guns, will by orders 

 published in The Peking Gazette turn out with drums, iron pans, etc., 

 to make a din to " save the moon.' 



Chinese astronomers distinguished five planets, or " moving stars," 

 and named them according to their ideas of elementary substances: 

 Venus, Golden ; Jupiter, Wooden ; Mercury, Water ; Mars, Fire ; Saturn, 

 Soil. To them the galaxy was The Heavenly River, a close analogy to 

 our term, The Milky Way. It is interesting to note how descriptive 

 the Chinese terms are as applied in translations of modern astronom- 

 ical ideas — a nebula is a "star-mist"; asteroids are "small moving 

 stars " ; the spectroscope is the " shooting shadow-lamp " ; and spectrum 

 analysis is " the shooting-shadow-difference-telling-light-method." 



5. Mathematics. — The arithmetical notation of the Chinese is based 

 on the decimal principle, but as their figures are not changed in value 

 by position, it is difficult to write out clearly the several steps in solving 

 a problem. Arithmetical calculations are performed with a " counting 

 board," an arrangement of balls on wires, which can, however, only serve 

 as an index for the progress and result of a calculation done in the 

 head, so that if an error is made, the whole operation must be done, 

 again. 



The study of arithmetic has attracted attention among the Chinese 

 from early times, and notices found in historical works indicate some 

 treaties extant even in the Han dynasty (206 b.c-a.d. 214), followed 

 by a great number of general and particular works down to the Sung 

 Dynasty (1020-1120 A.D.). The Hindu processes in algebra were 

 known to Chinese mathematicians, but though studied even after inter- 

 course between the countries had ceased, these branches made slow 

 progress down to the end of the Ming Dynasty (a.d. 1368-1644). 



