MODES OF KEEPING TIME KNOWN AMONG THE CHINESE. 609 
thus struck the hours correctly. It is not improbable that this instru- 
ment is identical with the celebrated one which the King of Persia sent 
in the year 807 to Charlemagne. 
In 980 an astronomer named Tsiang made an improvement on all 
former instruments, and considering the period it was a remarkable 
specimen of art. The machine was arranged in a sort of minature ter- 
‘ace, ten feet high, and was divided into three stories, the works being 
in the middle. Twelve images of men, one for every hour, appeared in 
turn before an opening in the terrace. Another set of automata struck 
the twelve hours and the eighths of such hours. These figures oceu- 
pied the lower story. The upper story was devoted to astronomy, 
where there was an orrery in motion, which it is obvious must have 
rendered very complex machinery necessary. We are only told that 
it had oblique, perpendicular, and horizontal wheels, and that it was 
kept in motion by falling water. As the Arabs had reached China by 
sea at the close of the eighth century, and by land at an earlier period, 
some assistance may have been derived from them in the construction 
of this instrument, but Iam disposed to consider it wholly Chinese. 
Beckmann, after much learned research, ascribes the invention of clocks 
to the Saracens, and the first appearance of their instruments in 
Europe to the eleventh century. 
Mention may here be made of other time-keeping instrumeuts of the 
same description, also constructed about this period. One, which 
like the last united an orrery and clepsydra, was formed in one part 
like a water lily, whilst in another were images of a dragon, a tiger, a 
bird, and a tortoise, which struck the kih on a drum, and a dozen 
puppets which struck hours on a bell, with various other motions, 
besides arepresentation of the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. The 
machinery of another of these was moved by an undershot water- 
wheel, its axis was even with the surface of the ground, and conse- 
quently the frame containing it was partly below the surface. The 
motions of the sun and moon, stars and planets, were made to revolve 
from east to west around a figure of the earth, represented as a plain. 
Images of men struck the hour and its parts. In this, as in all the 
above-named instruments, the number of strokes was doubtless always 
the same, as Chinese do not count but name the hours. 
Another machine was contrived which also represented the motion 
of the heavenly bodies. It was a huge hollow globe, perforated on its 
surface so as to afford, when lighted up, a good representation of the 
sky in the dark. This also was set in motion by falling water. Sub- 
sequent to this various machines are mentioned, but the brief notices 
given afford nothing of interest until we approach the close of the 
Yuen dynasty. Shun-tsing (A. D. 153060), the last emperor of the 
Mongol race, described in history as an effeminate prince with the 
physiognomy of a monkey, was evidently a man of great mechanical 
skill, and to the last amused himself by making models of vessels, 
H. Mis. 334, pt. 1 
39 
