4 Introduction. 



If we consider how many years, and what strenuous efforts it required 

 for European scientists to discover the actual sites of jade in central 

 Europe, which is geographically so well explored, we may realize that 

 it could not have been quite such an easy task .for primitive man to 

 hunt up these hidden places, even granted that geological conditions 

 may then have been different or more favorable. Or was that primi- 

 tive man so much keener and more resourceful than our present scien- 

 tists? Or if not, we must grant him the same difficulties in the search 

 for jade as to them. And if he overcame these difficulties and after all 

 found jade, it seems to me that he must have been prompted by a 

 motive pre-existing and acting in his mind; the impetus of searching 

 for jade, he must have received somehow and from somewhere, in the 

 same manner as was the case with our modern scientists who, without 

 the nephrite question in their heads, would not have searched for it, 

 and who finally found it, only because they sought it. This is the 

 psychological side of the historical aspect of the problem. 



Why did the Romans discover the Terra Sigillata on the Rhine and 

 in other parts of Germany unknown to the indigenous population? 

 Because they were familiar with this peculiar clay from their Mediter- 

 ranean homes, because they prized this pottery highly and desired it in 

 their new home. Let us suppose that we should not possess any records 

 relating to the history of porcelain. The chief substance of which it is 

 made, kaolin, is now found in this country, in Germany, Holland, 

 France and England, all of which produce objects of porcelain; con- 

 sequently, porcelain is indigenous to Europe and America, because 

 the material is found there. By a lucky chance of history we know 

 that it was made in neither country before the beginning of the eight- 

 eenth century, and that the incentive received from China was the 

 stimulus to Boettger's rediscovery in Dresden. Of course, arguing 

 a priori, the peoples of Europe and America could have made porcelain 

 ages ago; the material was at their elbows, but the brutal fact remains 

 that they did not, that they missed the opportunity, and that only 

 the importation and investigation of Chinese porcelain were instru- 

 mental in hunting for and finding kaolinic clay. And, while there have 

 been porcelains produced by local industry in Europe and America 

 for the last two centuries, we have, side by side with them, numerous 

 direct imports from China which continue despite the output of the 

 home market. 



Similar conditions may have prevailed also in an early stage of 

 the history of Europe. Even if jade occurs there in a natural state in 

 several localities, even if there is conclusive proof that it was dug and 

 worked in various areas, we are entitled to question, — did the idea 



