158 THEORY OP THE EARTH. 



The same book, only a few pages farther on* 

 introduces one YW, prime minister and chief en- 

 gineer, re-establishing the courses of the rivers, 

 building dikes, digging canals, and regulating the 

 taxes of all the provinces of China, that is, of an 

 empire which extends six hundred leagues in all 

 directions. But the utter impossibility of such 

 operations, immediately after such events, shows 

 clearly that the whole story can only be consid- 

 ered as a moral and political romance. 



More modern Chinese historians have intro- 

 duced a long series of emperors before Yao, which 

 they have combined with a multitude of fabulous 

 circumstances, yet without venturing to assign any 

 fixed dates to their reigns. These writers also 

 continually differ from each other, both in the 

 number and names of the kings ; and none of them 

 are universally approved on this subject by their 

 countrymen. 



The introduction of astronomy into China is 

 attributed to Yao; but the real eclipses recorded 

 by Confucius, in his Chronicle of the Kingdom of 

 Low, only go back two thousand six hundred years, 

 hardly half a century higher than those of the 

 Chaldeans, as related by Ptolemy. In the Chou- 

 King indeed, there is an eclipse mentioned which 

 goes back three thousand nine hundred and sixty- 

 five years, but which is related with the addition 

 of so many absurd circumstances, that it has been 



