ON CHINESE HUSBANDRY. 259 



and, radiating from each of these, are the natural phenomena of 

 each period. In the outer or largest circle of all are the labours to 

 be performed, and the products to be expected, under every season. 

 It is in fact a very comprehensive synopsis of " Works and Days." 



Sect. XII. — XX. Considering the important part which water 

 performs in Chinese husbandry, it is not surprising to find nine 

 sections devoted to the " Profit (or use) of Water." After some 

 " Tsoong Lun," or " General observations," the work proceeds to 

 notice the modes of irrigation in various parts of the empire ; but 

 as the eastern and southern provinces are incoutestably superior 

 in their natural advantages to the western and northern (which 

 are either mountainous or cold), so three sections are given to the 

 east and south, and only one to the west and north. 



The seventeenth section treats of the construction and manage- 

 ment of dams and sluices, and the various modes of raising water 

 to a higher level. Coloured woodcuts give very clear representa- 

 tions of the wooden chain-pump, the (so-called) Persian wheel 

 observed by our embassies in the interior, and other contrivances 

 for irrigating lands lying above the level of the water required. 

 This, is very essential in Rice cultivation, and the Chinese effect 

 their object, as usual, with great ingenuity and success. 



The eighteenth section treats of Chinese water-wheels of various 

 descriptions, which are illustrated by coloured wood-cuts ; and the 

 nineteenth and twentieth sections give some account of the water 

 machinery of the " great west," meaning some of the practical 

 applications of hydrostatics and hydraulics in Europe. This 

 must have been collated from treatises in Chinese composed by 

 the Jesuit missionaries. Coloured diagrams are interspersed, 

 explaining the principles of lifting and forcing pumps (the latter 

 with double alternating pistons and no air-chamber), and other 

 European contrivances. They commonly apply the principle of 

 the forcing-pump in their fire-engines, which are very efficiently 

 constructed. The Chinese are shrewd enough to perceive and 

 adopt what is really advantageous in use, though it may be foreign, 

 and this part of the work contains the very undeniable remark that 

 *' without the machinery for water, you cannot have the profits of 

 water. 



Sect. XXI. — XXIV. These four sections are devoted to the 

 description and representation of " Noong Kee," " The Tools or 

 Implements of husbandry." Here the coloured woodcuts come in 

 with good effect, and are highly illustrative of about one hundred 

 and twenty different implements, the use of most of which is 



