thp: pekin observatory. 1 



The sciontitic world has l)oen shocked at the looting of the Pekin 

 Observatory b}^ the French and German troops. The instruments are 

 to be sent to Europe. It is oroatly to General Chafiee's credit that he 

 l)rotested vigorously against this very unwarrantable act of vandalism. 

 At the end of this century institutions like an observatory should at 

 least be held sacred l.y civilized combatants. Our engravings repre- 

 sent a bronze sphere and a celestial glo])e of the same material, nearly 

 7 feet in diameter, constructed under the direction of Father Verbiest, 

 in the seventeenth century. Our iirst engraving represents a bronze 

 (piarter circle sent by Louis XIV to the Emperor Kang Hi in the sev- 

 enteenth century. Our fourth engraving represents the chief piece of 

 this observatory, so rich in artistic wonders. It is a bronze astronom- 

 ical instrument, vaguely recalling an equatorial. It was constructed in 

 the thirteenth century by Ko Chon King, astronomer of the Emperor 

 of the first Tartar dynasty and the founder of Pekin. The fifth engrav- 

 ing gives a general view of the astronomical instruments installed upon 

 the terrace of the observatory by Father Verbiest while he was presi- 

 dent of the tribunal of mathematics in 1674. Up to the present )ioth- 

 ing has ])een changed in the arrangement of these apparatus, and they 

 stand now^ just as they w ere placed by the learned missionary two hun- 

 dred years ago. 



The general view of the Pekin Observatory, established at the begin- 

 ning of the nineteenth century near the Tartar rampart and the Temple 

 of the Lettered, has a feudal character which more closely recalls the 

 old gates w ith elliptic arches of the fortified cities of the Middle Ages 

 than the original structures of the extreme East. It is a massive 

 square tower, of medium height, at the top of which is observed a 

 series of odd silhouettes. These latter are those of the instruments 

 shown in one of our drawings. A little lower, from the left of the 

 tow^er, starts a sort of shed with curved roof, and very Chinese, under 

 which have rested, since the foundation of Pekin, a few Mongolian 

 instruments, which are genuine artistic marvels, that our engraving 

 can scarcely give any idea of. 



This observatory is, or rather was, one of the rare curiosities of the 

 capital of the Celestial Empire. 



' Reprinted from Scientific American Supplement, No. 1304, December 29, 1900. 



185 



