iiS 



NA TURE 



IFcb.^^, 1887 



those of Ciply by MM. Cornet and Briart, are divided by 

 the authors into the true Tufeau de Ciply, with its con- 

 gloniiratic base, and the "Tufeau de St. Symphorien," 

 with Beleiiiiiittila mticronata, Thecidea {Thecidiuin) 

 fiapillatii, &c., which is seen to rest, also with the inter- 

 vention of a conglomerate, on the Senonian. The lower 

 of these horizons is incontestably Maestrichtian ; it 

 remained to show that the Tufeau de Ciply, on the other 

 hand, passes up continuously through the Ccrilhiuin- 

 limestone of Cuesmes into the Calcaire de Mons. 

 To outsiders, unfortunately, the evidence is not com- 

 plete. The junctions in the lield are still obscure, and 

 even the lack of parallelism between the Tufeaux of Ciply 

 and St. Symphorien is mainly based on palieontological 

 arguments, both beds alike resting in places on the upper- 

 most Senonian. The sharp distinction of the two faunas 

 leaves, however, little room for doubt ; and the alliance of 

 the Ciply beds with the Montian is still further emphasised 

 by the occurrence in them of large Ceritkia, of which the 

 authors record two new species, appropriately named 

 conieti and briarti. It is probable, then, that when, by 

 fortunate excavations in this phosphatic area, the neces- 

 sary junctions become exposed, MM. Rutot and Van den 

 Broeck may be congratulated on having added beyond 

 recall some 20 or 30 feet to the Tertiary beds of Europe. 

 The papers also include a revision of the classification 

 of the Senonian of South- West Belgium. G. C. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible/or opinions ex- 

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 return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manu- 

 scripts. No notice is taken of anonymous cotnmunications. 



[ The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters 

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 of coinmunicalions cotitaining interesting and novel facts. ] 



On Two Jade-handled Brushes 



Some years ago, I purchased from Mr. Bryce-Wright, of 

 London, two specimens of jade which I then presumed to be 

 " brushes," the handle and sheath of each being of jade, of th.at 

 faint greenish-gray so characteristic of the finest specimens of that 

 mineral. I was not led to entertain any further opinion as to 

 their true character until the appearance of a paragraph in 

 Nature, vol. xxviii. p. 207, being an extract from the North 

 China Herald, respecting the foot measures in China. I was 

 particularly struck by the statement made that "in ad. 274 a 

 new measure exactly 9 inches in length was made the standard," 

 and further " that the lengths of certain jade tubes used accord- 

 ing to old regulations as standards " were employed as terms of 

 comparison. It was further mentioned " that of the jade tubes 

 above mentioned there were twelve, and these formed the basis 

 for the measurement of liquids and solids four thousand years 

 ago. . . . They are mentioned in the oldest Chinese documents, 

 with the astrolabe, the cycle of 60 years, and several of the oldest 

 constellations. It is likely that th'ey will be found to be an im- 

 portation from Babylon, and in that case the Chinese foot is 

 based on a Babylonian measure of a span, and should be 9 

 inches in length." 



This article led me to measure the lengths of the two jade 

 instruments, which I found to be 9 inches, with some slight 

 difference for one of them. I endeavoured to obtain further in- 

 formation as to the nature of these instruments and whence they 

 came. Mr. Bryce-Wright could only tell me that to the best of 

 his recollection he had procured them from the Chevalier von 

 .Siebi 111, son of Dr. von SieboH, and promised to make further 

 inquiries. As I also learned that no such specimens exist in the 

 British Museum, I was led to attach some importance to them 

 in connection with their lengths. This was strengthened by an 

 article which appeared in NATUiiE, vol. xxx. p. 565, " On the 

 Connection between Chinese Music, Weights, and Measures," 

 which seemed to confirm the statements made in the North 



China HualJ, whWe adding many others of very great interest 

 for the determination of the real nature of the e jade tubes. 



The subject was treated by Dr. Wagener in a paper read 

 before the German Asiatic Society of Japan some years ago, 

 in which it was stated that the common origin of the Chinese 

 weiglits, measures, and musical notes is based on native legends, 

 and is also treated of in theje.'uit " Memoires concernant les 

 Chinois." Dr. Wagener says that there is not the slightest 

 doubt that the Chinese system of weights and measures is more 

 than four thousand years old, and that it possesses all the advan- 

 tages for which the French metrical system is so much praised. 

 The paper states that in the reign of tlie Emperor Hoang-ti, 

 who ruled over China in the twenty-seventh century B.C., the 

 scholar Lyng-Lun was commissioned to complete the musical 

 system, which had been discovered two hundred and fifty years 

 earlier, and particularly to lay down fixed rules for making 

 musical instruments ; that he betook himself to the province of 

 Si-yung in North- West China, where, on the northern slope of 

 a range of high mountains, a species of bamboo grew which, on 

 account of its uniformity and its structure, being neither too 

 hard nor too soft, was exceedingly suitable for a wind-instru- 

 ment. This range appears to contain the head-waters of the 

 Hoang-ho, the rippling of its waters producing a sound similar 

 to the first or fundamental note which he obtained from the 

 bamboo. He determined a scale of twelve notes : these are the 

 notes which are called the six male and six female tones in the 

 scale discovered by Lyng-Lun. Having reproduced the notes 

 by means of bamboo pipes, he proceeded to lay down fi.\ed rules 

 as to the length of the pipes, so tliat thenceforth they could be 

 easily constructed anywhere. For this he required a unit of 

 length, and sought out an adequately small natural unit for his 

 measurements. He selected for that purpose the seeds of the red 

 millet [Siirghuin ritbriiin), which present greater hardness and 

 uniformity than the other kinds of millet. Lyng-Lun fixed the 

 length of the pipe giving the key-note at 81 grains of the seed 

 placed lengthways in a row : placed breadthways, it took 100 

 grains to give the same length. Thus the double division of 

 9x9 and 10 X 10 was naturally arrived at. Lyng-Lun also 

 laid down rules for the breadth as well as the length of the 

 pipe, because, although the note is essentially dependent on the 

 length, it is nevertheless necessary for its purity that the pipe 

 should be neither too broad nor too narrow. He therefore tixed 

 the circumference on the inside at 9 grains laid lengthways. 

 With these dimensions — namely, a length of 81 grains and an 

 internal circumference of 9 — the pipe v\hich gave the key-note 

 contains just 1200 grains, and this volume accordingly was made 

 the unit of dry measure, and was called a Yo. Thus the units of 

 length and dry measure were connected with the musical key- 

 note. The twelve notes of the scale are all derived from the 

 key-note. " Hence if the 1200 grains contained in the pipe are 

 divided among the twelve notes it gives to each a hundred, and 

 the weight of these hundred grains was made by Lyng-Lun the 

 unit of weight" (as I understand this, it means that the twelve 

 pipes were arranged to represent a series of cubical contents, 

 commencing with 1200 and ending with 100 millet-seed con- 

 tents). Dr. Wagener concluded by stating that this system of 

 measures dates back 4600 years. 



Analysing the statement made by Dr. Wagener, it is evident 

 that the earliest form of pitch-pipe known to the Chinese was a 

 bamboo tube, the sound being produced as in the Pandean pipes. 

 The northern slope of a range of high mountains on the north- 

 west frontier of China, in which lie the head-waters of the Hoang- 

 ho, corresponds fairly well, as locality, with the district whence 

 is supposed to come the jade so prized in China. The twelve 

 bamboo pipes or tubes fixed as standards of musical notes by 

 Lyng-Lun, correspond apparently with the twelve jade tubes 

 mentioned by the North China Herald as having formed the 

 basis for the measu'ement of liquids and solids four thousand 

 years ago. The jade tubes were used as standards of length, 

 and being spoken of as tubes, similarly as the bamboo tubes, it 

 may be inferred that they were also standards of volume-mea- 

 surement and of musical pitch, therefore that the hollow portion 

 or tube had a depth corresponding to the particular note which 

 it was intended to reproduce. Hence these twelve jade tubes 

 would thus represent a set of Pandean pipes, while the requisite 

 length, so as to allow of their being used each as .standards of 

 9-inch length, could be attained by the addition or insertion of a 

 stick or stop of sufficient length, just as is represented by the 

 two " brushes " in question. The lengths of these were found 



