8G6 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [No. <$. 



Dr. McGowan of Ningpo has sent us from that country, with some 

 other specimens, which I shall advert to in a future report, a small bit of 

 alum stone from the Sung-Yang hills bordering on Foh Kien, together 

 with a newspaper extract describing some of the uses of alum in China, 

 and the works from whence this his specimen is obtained. The extract 

 is as follows : — 



" Alum. — About eleven hundred tons of Alum have been exported within 

 a short period, chiefly to India. This mineral is largely employed by the 

 Chinese in dying, and to some extent in paper-making as with us. Sur- 

 geons apply it variously after depriving it of its water of crystalization, 

 and in domestic life it is used for precipitating vegetable substances 

 suspended in potable water. 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 Bhizostoma which abound on the coast 

 they rub the animal with the pulverized styptic to give a degree of coher- 

 ence to the gelatinous mass. Architects employ it as a cement in those 

 airy bridges which span the water-courses. It is poured in a molten state 

 into the interstices of 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 had percolated into the mausoleum of Kiaking, having been 

 built too near to the mountain side, the alum cement imbibed moisture, 

 segregated and opened the way for to enter the tomb. In those peaceful 

 days such an event was of such importance as to call forth edicts and 

 rescripts, memorials and reports in succession for several months. The 

 son-in-law of the deceased monarch to whose care the construction of the 

 edifice had been entrusted was fined and degraded, and a statesman from 

 Fohkien acquainted with the properties of alum was appointed to remove 

 it a short distance from the mountain. 



" Alum was first introduced into China from the West, and until a 

 comparatively recent period the best kind called sometimes Persian, and 

 at others Roman Alum was brought from Western Asia. Numerous 

 localities where an inferior article is manufactured are mentioned in the 

 Pharmacopcea — viz., Shan-tung, Shan-se, Kiang-su, Hukwang, Sz'-chuen, 

 also in the South-western frontier and in Tibet. That from Sz'-chuen is re- 

 presented as having the property of converting iron into copper or of coating 

 iron with copper, by placing the former metal in a solution of rice-liquor 

 and alum, the stone of that province. The most recent editions of works 

 on materia medica contain no reference to the mines in this province, the 

 products of which have surpassed in quality the foreign, and rendered 



