388 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1753. 



money. It is said, that they sell it at Paris under the name of China varnish. 

 It is excellent for preserving furniture, giving them a polish not inferior to our 

 varnishes of Europe, which cost so much money. Perhaps they may make some 

 attempts to use it in Europe; but they will not succeed, because they know not 

 how to prepare it. This oil is so common in China, that the greatest part of the 

 people, in tolerable circumstances, rub over their timber with it, giving it what 

 colour they please. It i1ot only adorns their houses, but also preserves the wood. 

 The columns that support their houses, and those of the great room where the 

 emperor's throne is, are varnished with no other than this oil. 



The kou chou is a tree, of the bark of which they make the best paper in 

 China. The common paper of their books, which looks yellowish, is made of 

 a particular sj:)ecies of bambou, of which they prepare the young shoots, as we 

 prepare hemp. They whiten it by boiling it in lime-water : in this manner they 

 prepare the kou chou. There is no silken paper in China; all the different kinds 

 of paper here are made either of bark, hemp, or of the straw of corn or rice. 

 Sometimes they blend with this last the stalks of the typha.* The paper made 

 of hemp or ntraw serves only for wrapping up goods, or to make pasteboard; 

 and that made of the bark of the cotton-plant serves for fans, being less apt to 

 crack than any other white paper. 



The white wax, produced by certain insects, is a very curious and profitable 

 thing. What had been told him by one of their missionaries, who had bred 

 them himself, is not sufficient to give a proper idea of them. As to the manner 

 of their depositing this wax, it appears that there is some analogy between it, 

 and the manner of the gum lac's being deposited by certain ants.-^ 



In the emperor's palace they verj' rarely use any other candles, than such as 

 are made of this wax, because it never emits any smoke. The learned therefore 

 use them only, when they compose an exercise on their examination for degrees; 

 for then they are confined in very small rooms, where the smoke of tallow candles 

 would incommode them greatly. The chief consumption of this wax is owing 

 to their coating tallow candles with it. This wax is procured by boiling the 

 matter rasped off the branches of the tree, the leaves of which are the proper 

 nourishment of these insects, in a large vessel of water; the wax swims at the 

 top, and when cold it is taken off in a cake. 



* Typha palustris major of Caspar Bauhin. Cat's-tail. — Orig. 



f In order to explain this passage, I take the liberty of making the following remark. The lacca- 

 tree is the jujuba indica of the great Ray; which produces this gum. The letter writer is misled by 

 what Garcias ab Horto says about it, that certain large winged ants make this gum out of the juice 

 sucked from this tree, and deposit it upon the surculi, &c. of the same: but the celebrated Ray and 

 J. Bauhin say, it is exudated, and by the heat of the sun concreted into the form, in which it is 

 found on the parts of this tree. There are other trees which produce this gum, as well as this, men- 

 tioned by Hermannus. — Orig. 



