656 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



action on the ship. It is also capable of being moved up and down, 

 so as to increase or diminish the extent of the submerged surface. In 

 some junks, it can be let down below the bottom of the vessel, and this 

 property permits the craft to be handled very rapidly, and within 

 spaces in which our otherwise better ships can not turn. The ta-tsang 

 is divided into close compartments, each of which has its particular 

 use ; and has two masts, one in the center and the other toward the 

 stern, each carrying a square bamboo-leaf sail. The sails are furled 

 by letting down the upper yard, but are difficult to manage in bad 

 weather, on account of their large size ; so that, when at sea, it is 

 deemed prudent to carry only half-sail. These boats are within the 

 reach only of the aristocrats of the sea. The boats of the common 

 fishermen are much smaller and more manageable. The most curious 

 among them is the one which is called the "white jump." It is a 

 long shallop, drawing but little water, and furnished on one side with 

 a broad board painted white, which is fixed so as to slope toward the 

 water. The boats only go out in clear moonlight nights, when the 

 light reflected from the white surface attracts the fish, and they try to 

 leap upon the plank. But they usually leap too far and fall into the boat. 



With their nets, hooks, harpoons, and " white jumps," the fisher- 

 men of Swatow and Ningpo capture so many victims that there would 

 be danger of their being killed to no purpose, had not Chinese indus- 

 try found a way to transport them for long distances, to where they 

 may make regal repasts for epicurean mandarins. The fishermen of 

 Niugpo preserve their catches in ice, which they manage, notwith- 

 standing the mildness of the climate, to get made on the spot. The 

 Chinese processes for making ice are servile imitations of those of Na- 

 ture. The rice-fields are the factories. When the cold begins to be 

 felt, the flats are covered, by the aid of pumps, wuth a very thin bed 

 of water. The ice which forms during the night is broken up every 

 morning by coolies, who carry it, carefully cleaned from adhering mud, 

 to the ice-houses, and then flood the fields again. The ice-houses are 

 simple in construction, but capacious ; for the climate of Ningpo is 

 too mild to permit ice to be formed every year, and the proprietors 

 are required by law to store in them enough to last three years. The 

 ice-house consists of a vast quadrilateral, inclosed in walls made of 

 stones cemented with mud, rising some twenty or twenty-five feet 

 above the ground. The faces of the walls are thickly plastered, and 

 the whole is then covered with heavy bamboo-matting, which is sup- 

 ported by a framework also of bamboo. The ice-houses of the north 

 are smaller and less solidly constructed, for thick ice forms there 

 abundantly every winter, and is more easily kept through the summer. 

 In the vicinity of the capital, the ditch which anciently inclosed its 

 domain is still well enough preserved in some places to serve as an 

 ice-pond, and the ice-houses are built near its banks. 



The fishermen also require large quantities of salt, and this is 



