194 REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS 



to the memory of R. Gauthiot, the great Iranian scholar, though we 

 fail to see how or why he should deserve the title of 'Chun tzu' on 

 this account. Part of Dr. Laufer's purpose is, " The accurate 

 restoration of the Chinese form in accordance with rigid phonetic 

 principles is the essential point . . . . Thus Mu-lu, 7J<; J&, name of a 

 city on the eastern frontier of An-si, has been identified with Mouru, 

 (Muru), of the Avesta . . . but from a phonetic view point this is 

 not acceptable, for Mu-lu corresponds to ancient Muk-luk, Bug-luk, 

 Bug-rug, to be restored to "Bux-rux.' " That is the proposition — with 

 an example. It doesn't look promising, we confess. We leave it at 

 that, and Dr. Laufer proposes to do so too. "The linguistic pheno- 

 mena," he says, "important as they may be, form merely a side issue 

 •of this investigation. My main task is to trace the history of all 

 •objects of material culture, pre-eminently cultivated plants, drugs, 

 products, minerals, metals, precious stones, and textiles in that migra- 

 tion from Persia to China (Sino-Iranic), and others transmitted from 

 China to Persia (Irano-Sinica)." This of course means some work, and 

 perhaps here it would not be out of place to express our astonishment 

 at the facility with which Dr. Laufer issues numerous pamphlets and 

 ponderous books. This volume for example begins with p. 185 and 

 -ends with 630, about pp. 430. The type is small, the page fairly large 

 containing about 200,000 words. The mechanical work alone of 

 writing so much in addition to the work of consultation, apart from 

 original investigation, must be stupendous. Students will feel under 

 great obligation to the learned author for collecting so much material 

 from various fields and bringing them into one compact volume, thus 

 making accessible much valuable information, scattered and dispersed 

 over so many books and in diverse languages. Ability to do so is only 

 given to a few. Dr. Laufer's method may be gathered from the 

 following example : 



"It is well known that attempts have been made to derive the 

 Chinese word from Greek fibrpvt; ("a bunch of grapes"). Tomaschek 

 was the first to offer this suggestion ; T. Kingsmill followed 

 in 1879, and Hirth endorsed Kingsmill. No one gave a real 

 demonstration of the case. Tomaschek argued that the dissemination 

 of the vine in Central Asia is connected with Macedonian-Greek rule 

 and Hellenic influence. This is decidedly wrong, for the vine grows 

 spontaneously in all northern Iranian regions ; and its cultivation in 

 Iran is traceable to a great antiquity, and is certainly older there than 

 in Greece. The Greeks received the vine and wine from Western Asia. 

 Greek PoTpit? in all likelihood, is a Semitic loan-word. It is highly 

 improbable that the people of Fergana would have employed a Greek 



