CHINA 1751- 277 



it may be written on with ink, and in my opi- 

 nion is to be preferred to any European fort, 

 efpecially for drying plants. The Clmiefe, 

 who neither make ufe of pens nor of our ink 

 in writing, but write with hair pencils dipt 

 into Indian ink, can very well do with thinner 

 paper. Inflead of an ink pot, they make ufe 

 of a fmall marble table with elevated borders, 

 of the-fize of one's hand ; this ferves to mix 

 the Indian ink, which, being diifolved in water, 

 gathers in a little hole at one end of the ftone. 



Books in all forts of fciences are to be had 

 here, ftitched in thin white paper ; but none 

 in a foreign language. The fize of their 

 books anfwers to that of our royal oclavo. 

 All their books are printed with wooden plates, 

 in the manner that the manufacturers in Eu- 

 rope print cottons. 



Their obfervations on the heavens and 

 earth, and their hiflory, are remarkable on ac- 

 count of their antiquity b. Their morals are 

 looked upon as a matter-piece ; their laws are 

 confidered as excellent maxims of life ; their 

 medicine and natural hiflory are both of them 



b According to their accounts, they go as high as the 

 times of Noah. 



T 3 founded 



