July, 1913. - Notes on Turquois. 69 



the Chinese secretary found these statements. There is nothing to this effect to be 

 met in the Ta Ts'ing i Vung chi. Among the products of K'ii-chou fu (Ch. 233, p. 9) 

 are mentioned, after the Ta Ming i i'ung chi, ink-slabs produced in the two districts 

 of Ch"ang-shan and K"ai-hua, but no other kind of mineral; in the account of Wto- 

 chou fu (Ch. 235, p. 10) no stone is registered. Perhaps his statement is derived 

 from his "other Chinese sources"; but even then we should like to know the Chinese 

 word translated by him "lapis lazuli," and as he does not give it, his note is rather 

 valueless. As pointed out on p. 44, note 2, we meet in the Ta Ts'ing i t'ung chi the 

 word kin sing ski {lit. gold star stone) in Ch. 398, p. 3 b, description of Sze-chou fu in 

 Kuei-chou Province, where it is said that this stone occurs east of the city of Sze-chou 

 in the Kia-ch'i Lake, and that, according to the Provincial Gazetteer, stars and 

 spots appear on its surface, that it is hard and glossy and can be worked up into ink- 

 slabs. Giles (in his Dictionary, p. 252c) explains kin sing shi by "iron and copper 

 pyrites," in agreement with F. Porter Smith (Contributions towards the Materia 

 Medica and Natural History of China, p. 123, Shanghai, 1871). I do not wish to 

 push this discussion any further, as the second word cannot be spoken before the 

 first has been said. Specimens suspected of being lapis lazuli must be procured from 

 the various localities where they are reported to occur, and examined by competent 

 mineralogists. Others like T. Wad.\ (Beitrdge zur Mineralogie von Japan, No. i , p. 21) 

 den}' that lapis lazuli is found in China, and are of the opinion that it is imported from 

 Central Asia. 



p. 45. Incidentally I wish to refer here to a now antiquated investigation of T. 

 DE Lacouperie, On Yakut Precious Stones from Oman to North China, 400 b. c. 

 {Babylonian and Oriental Record, Vol. VI, 1893, pp. 271-4), in which the Chinese 

 ye kuang chu, "the bead or pearl shining at night, " is set in relation with the Arabic 

 word for the ruby yakut (an etymology impossible for philological and historical 

 reasons; in fact, the Chinese term is not a transcription of any foreign word but a 

 thoroughly Chinese formation) and identified with the ruby, "probably from 

 Badakshan, the chief source of these stones at that time." 



p. 46, note I. The date of Yang Shen, as given by Mayers, is correct; it is given 

 as the same by CHAVA>fNES {T'oung Pao, 1904, p. 474) who notes his biography after 

 Ming shi (Ch. 192). Yang Shfin wrote the Nan-chao ye shi in 1550. 



p. 49. For the elucidation of this text I am greatly indebted to M. Pelliot who 

 will himself take it up in his proposed study of the history of the Nestorians in China. 

 M. Pelliot says that he has not found the text in the Hua yang kuo chi, but on the 

 other hand has not succeeded in discovering a trace of an independent work Hua yang 

 ki. The quotation given from Chao Pien is not contained in the latter work, but is 

 taken from another source. According to the Sung shi, Chao Pien lived in fact from 

 1006-1084, as will be demonstrated by M. Pelliot in the publication mentioned, but 

 it is not certain whether he is the author of the Shu tu ku shi. What is rendered 

 above by monolith is in the text shi sun (Nos. 9964, 10438) by which M. Pelliot is 

 inclined to understand megalithic monuments. These stone ruins are the remainders 

 of an ancient tomb (compare Ch'eng-tu hien chi, 1873, Ch. 2, p. 3 b, and Sze-ch'uan 

 t'ung chi, Ch. 48, p. 66 b), and have nothing to do with the Temple of Ta Ts'in. In 

 the last number of the Journal asiatigue {Mars-Avril, 1913, p. 308), Chav.\nnes and 

 Pelliot alluding to the text of Neng kai chat man lu incline toward the opinion that 

 the temples of Ta Ts'in are due to the Nestorians. 



p. 52. Also Qazwlnl (1203-83) mentions the onyx of China (Sm) with the 

 curious addition that the people of Sm repudiate the quarrying of the onyx mines, 

 which is left only to slaves who cannot otherwise eke out a living and sell the stone 

 in countries outside of Sm (J. Ruska, Das Steinbuch aus der Kosmographie des al- 

 Qazwmi, p. 12). 



p. 53, note 3. The statement that the Shi si yii ki seems to be lost is based on 

 Bretschneider's authority; besides the quotation as given there, his Mediaeval 

 Researches (Vol. II, p. 268) ought to have been pointed out, where the same. is re- 

 peated. But this is contradictory to what Bretschneider says on p. 147 of the same 



