Miscellaneous Intelligence. 445 
It is used also by the Chinese in a manner peculiar to themselves. 
Fishermen are usually provided with it, and when they take one of those 
huge Thizostoma which abound on the coast they rub the animal with . 
span the watercourses. It is poured in a molten state into the inter- 
stices of the stones; and in structures not exposed to constant moisture 
the cohesion is perfect, but in damp situations it becomes a hydrate 
and crumbles, a fact of which the whole empire was officially informed 
by the government about thirty years ago. It was discovered that water 
paratively recent period the best kind called sometimes Persian, and at 
n Alum, was brought from Western Asia. Numerous lo- 
rice-liquor and alum the stone of that province, Ihe most recent editions 
works on materia medica, contain no reference to the mines in thi 
province, the products of which have surpassed in quality the 
and ered its 1 i i 
cessary. 
circumstances, it is certain that the works which we shall now describe 
| have not been long in operation. They are in the Sung-yang hills bor- 
| dering on Foh-kien in the district of Ping-yang, Wan-chau prefecture, 
| and in close proximity to Peh-kwan harbor (27° 9’ 10” N., 120° 32’ 
oC" 
! 
E. 
The locality has been visited by one foreigner only, to whom we are 
indebted for most of the following particulars. About two months 
he ; . . . * . 
y stone steps 
m to the mines. Ten alum-making establish- 
ments were in operation, which, with the exception of one on a hill oppo- 
site, occupied skoat a mile of the side of a lofty hill. The works were 
adjacent to the " 
«e 
