94 SURGEON-GENERAL SIR C. A. GORDON^ M.D., K.C.B., ON 



social, relating to his people. Among- the subjects to which 

 his attention was directed the following brief record must 

 here suffice, namely : — He established the cycle of 60 years 

 in accordance with which Chinese chronology has ever since 

 continued to be reckoned. That cycle would appear to 

 have been little if anything more than an adaptation of a 

 mode of reckoning time adopted nearly tAvo centuries before 

 the date of his accession, by means of the numbers 10 and 

 12, the characters of which gave a cycle of 60 years,* and 

 formed also the rule of the hours, days, months, and years — 

 a formula so commodious that it has been preserved in 

 China, even from the time of Fohi to the present period.! He 

 introduced the decimal system of notation.| He encouraged 

 the study of astronomy and meteorology; being able, "by 

 means of making experiments, to foretell the changes of the 

 weather and air." He established methods of measurement 

 by length and by weight, and made stringent enactments 

 that both should be just ; the art of cooking in furnaces 

 prepared for the purpose ; the erection of houses instead of 

 bowers formed by branches of trees. He caused roads, 

 chiefly for military purposes, to be made and bridges erected 

 throughout his dominions. § It is related that Avhile they 

 were as yet unfinished, he invented a carriage on which was 

 arranged a gallery surmounted by a little figure that pointed 

 to the south, thereby indicating the direction in which on 

 the occasion of an Imperial progress he desired to wend 

 his way through primeval forest land. The same instrument 

 served to determine the four cardinal points without 

 considering the aspect of the heaveiivS. I'his could have 

 been no other than the compass, the discovery of which in 

 China is usually assigned to a date long subsequent to that 



* The sexagenary cycle seems to have been perfectly arbitvaiy, for no 

 explanation now exists of the reasons which induced its inventor Hwangti, 

 or his minister Nao the Clreat, to select this number. It is in fact 

 nothing more than a method of reckoning chronological periods, though 

 restricted to China, the century being adopted for the same purpose by 

 Western nations. Du Halde, vol. i, p. 135 ; Williams, vol. ii, p. 69 

 China opened — Gutslaff, vol. i, p. 296. 



t Chiiia, by Hugh Murray, vol. iii, p. 234. 



j The notation of the Chinese is based on the decimal principle ; but as 

 their figures are not changed in value by ]30sition, it is difficult to write 

 ouc clearly the several steps in solving a problem. Williams, vol. ii, p. 66. 



§ Which extended from near Shachow in the province of Kansu on 

 the west to the sea on the east, and from Pechli on the north to the 

 Kiansr on the south. 



