ii2 Field Museum or Natural History — Anth., Vol. X. 



I fail to see that the word liu-li has generally had the meaning of 

 glass which was and is called po-li. Special inquiries were made by me 

 in regard to this subject in the glass factories of Po shan in Shantung 

 Province where the word liu-li with reference to glass, whether translu- 

 cid or opaque, is entirely unknown; glass is called po-li, and strass or 

 colored glass liao (Giles No. 7070), while liu-li refers only to ceramic 

 glazes, as e. g. liu-li wa means glazed pottery, and the use and distinc- 

 tion of these three terms is uniform all over northern China. 1 



I concur with Hirth (Chinesische Studien, p. 63) in the view that 

 the word po-li is traceable to Turkish bolor. But then it is impossible 

 to identify the word pi-liu-li also with bolor, for liu-li and po-li are two 

 different words, and, as admitted also by Hirth, two different articles 

 or substances ; consequently, the two words cannot be credited with the 

 same etymological origin. This subject cannot be pursued any further 

 in this connection, as lying outside of the pale of this publication; I 

 must be content with these indications which will possibly lead to a 

 revision of the history of glass in China. Nothing could induce me to 

 the belief fostered by Prof. Hirth that the Chinese with their ever 

 vital instinct for the value of natural products and with their keen 

 sense of trade should ever have been so unsophisticated as to mistake 

 colored glass beads for precious stones, and to honor them with exor- 

 bitant prices ; no child in China could be enticed into such a game, and 

 the most confiding and optimistic mind can see or feel the difference 

 between glass and stone. Certainly, the liu-li looked upon by the 

 Chinese as precious stones have been so indeed; they were vaidurya, 

 whatever species of precious stone this word may have served to denote. 

 Wu Ta-ch'eng's discussion goes to prove that it is also the judgment 

 of modern Chinese scholars that the pi-liu-li of old was not glass or 

 strass, but a precious stone. 



Another astronomical instrument is mentioned in the Chou li, 

 but no specimens of it have survived from which we could form any 

 definite ideas. This is the tu kuei, i. e. a jade piece for measuring, which, 

 according to the Chou li (Biot, Vol. II, p. 522), should be one foot five 

 inches in length and serve "to determine the point where the sun comes, 

 and to measure the earth," i. e. it was an instrument to measure the 

 length of the solar shadow which is said to have been one foot and a 

 half at the summer solstice and thirteen feet at the winter solstice, 

 the gnomon having eight feet (compare Biot, Vol. I, pp. 200-204, 488). 



I do not mean to deal in this connection with the jade figure known 



^lso Bushell (Chinese Art, Vol. I, p. 61) understands, and I believe correctly, 

 that what the artisans from the kingdom of the Indoscythians taught in China early 

 in the fifth century was the art of making different kinds of colored glazes (liu-li). 



