PROCEEDINGS. 473 
preserved in records of later date, They were obliged to the 
Rev. Dr. Edkins for the light thrown upon this obscure subject by 
the result of his studies as communicated in the lecture of that 
evening, and he had no doubt that the meeting would join with him 
in tendering to the learned doctor a hearty vote of thanks. 
The Caarrman having announced that the meeting was nuw open 
for discussion, 
Gen. Musny said he agreed that considerable elevation of the soil 
of China must have taken place. He instanced a pei-lo which had 
been erected in the 13th century, and of which a good deal had 
been covered by accumulations of soil. 
Dr. E. Faser said that it was with much interest in the subject 
that he followed the learned lecture of Dr. Edkins. As sans 
discourse contained, however, many statements which were wel 
putable, it would be impossible to enter into a detailed dicensdins 
at that moment. They all agreed that China enjoyed an — 
civilisation ; they even agreed so far with Dr. Edkins as to eee 
that the Chow dynasty was not the beginning of mankind in China, 
but that other people had existed before the Chaws and had 
managed in one way or another to live in society, or—in the sense 
of Aristotle—in political state. The astronomical data, sgn 
referred to by Dr. Edkins were without scientific value. <p a 
not been possible, in spite of repeated attempts mando: by spans 
- scholars and astronomers, to fix one date before 800 B.c. wre 
on the sky and people lived below the sky long beto 
of course, 
i hinese records referring 
10 C. determine from the vague C —_ 
Sibemets dentification of a single star, 
to the period before 800 B.c the exacti f observation 
‘its exact position at a certain time, and —* —" : jnfladuc’ 
to which the record belonged was an impossibility. LIES G8 
on China at the early period of about — cage Ee 
proved by some inc ntrovertible evidence, not me its a ea 
similarity of two or three ideas among oe? writing of the 
altogether. The same rule applied to the eo a of which no 
Mesopotamian valley. ‘That. the tadpole 250 he sieelll 
trace was left in China, were cuneiform was @ pag a “Babylonian 
out the slightest historical proof, If Persian 3 
