154 On (he Natural-Historical Writings of the Chinese. 



written to satisfy pure desire for knowledge. 3. The medi- 

 cal properties of the whole and of individual parts. 4. An 

 elenchus of all diseases or accidents in which the production 

 may be employed with advantage, together with indications 

 of the mode of use (recipes). These popular medical additions 

 are frequently of much greater extent than the descriptive 

 paragraphs ; and we here perceive, as in other departments, 

 an impatient eagerness for practical utility. Each descrip- 

 tive paragraph is a sort of examination of witnesses ; all the 

 authorities follow one another in chronological order, and the 

 actual view or expei'ience of Li-schi-tschin generally comes 

 last. False statements of his predecessors are either rectified 

 incidentally, or in a special addendum, entitled " Corrected 

 errors.'' Whenever it can be historically proved in regard to 

 an object, that China is not its native country, the naturalists 

 scrupulously point this out, even when an immense time inter- 

 venes between their own epoch and that of its introduction. 

 The author has communicated to the Berlin Academy a few 

 articles relating to the animal and vegetable kingdoms, wholly 

 or partially translated. 



The Encyclopsedias of the Chinese are exceedingly nume- 

 rous, and extremely different in style and extent. The Royal 

 Library at Berlin possesses one of the most esteemed encyclopae- 

 dias, the San-ts^ai-t'u-hoei, the natural historical part of which 

 contains well executed representations of selected productions 

 of the kingdoms of nature. The descriptions themselves are 

 generally merely abridged articles of the Pen-ts'ao, but some- 

 times with modifications and original additions. Among the 

 dictionaries in the encyclopaedia style, there is one which de- 

 serves particularly to be mentioned, the Bulekii-bitche, or Mir- 

 ror of the Mandju Language, in which the definitions of na- 

 tural objects frequently amount to actual descriptions. 



The Royal Library ft Berlin possesses two geographical 

 works, between the dates of which there is an interval of 700 

 years. The comparison of these offers much that is instruc- 

 tive in an ethnological and natural historical point of view, 

 because the surface of China at the time when the first of 

 these works appeared (about 900 years ago) was not nearly 



