ON CHINESE HOROLOGY, ETC. 221 



Another machine was constructed which also represented the motions of 

 the heavenly bodies. It was a huge, hollow globe, containing lights, 

 and perforated on its surface, so as to afford, in the dark, a good repre- 

 sentation of the heavens. This, also, was set in motion by falling 

 Water. Subsequently to this, various machines are mentioned, but the 

 brief notices given afford nothing of interest, until we approach the 

 close of the Yuen dynasty, the middle of the fourteenth century. 

 Shungtsing, the last of the race of the great Genghis Khan, who is de- 

 picted in history as an effeminate prince, and as having the physiognomy 

 of a monkey, was evidently a man of great mechanical skill, and to the 

 last, when his dominions were slipping from him, and confusion reigned 

 everywhere, he amused himself by making models of vessels, automata, 

 and time-pieces. His chief work was a machine contained in a box 

 seven feet high, and half that in width, on the top of which were three 

 small temples. The middle of these temples had fairies holding horary- 

 characters, one of which made her appearance every hour. Time was 

 struck by a couple of gods, and it is said they kept it very accurately. 

 In the side temples were representations of the sun and moon, respec- 

 tively, and from these places genii issued, crossing a bridge to the middle 

 temple, and after ascertaining, as it were, the time of day from the 

 fairies, returning again to their quarters. The motions in this case were, 

 it is thought, effected by springs. An instrument somewhat similar is 

 described as an ornament in the palace of the capital of Corea ; it was 

 a clepsydra, with springs, representing the motions of the celestial orbs, 

 and having automata to strike the hour. Since the introduction of 

 European clocks, clepsydras have fallen into disuse. The only one, 

 perhaps, in the empire, is that in the watch-tower in the city of Canton ; 

 it is of the simplest form, having no movements of any kind, but it is 

 said to keep accurate time. 



In dialling, the Chinese have never accomplished anything, being 

 deficient in the requisite knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. It 

 is true, the projection of the shadow of the gnomon was carefully 

 observed at the earliest historic period ; but this was for astronomical 

 purposes only.* Proper sun-dials were unquestionably derived from the 

 West ; but they were not introduced, as Sir J. F. Davis supposes, by 

 the Jesuits. The Chinese are probably indebted to the Mahouiudans for 

 this instrument, although we find an astronomer endeavouring to 

 rectify the clepsydra, by means of the sun's shadow, projected by a 

 gnomon, about a century earlier than the Hegira. There is a sun-dial 

 in the Imperial Observatory at Pekin, above four feet in diameter. 



* It was by a gnomon that the ancient Chinese endeavoured to ascertain the 

 centre of the earth. A measurement of the length of the solstitial shadow, made 

 at Loyang, on the Yellow river, 1200 B c, was found by Laplace (quoted by 

 Humboldt, in Cosmos, vol. 2, p. 115) to accord perfectly with the theory of the 

 obliquity of the ecliptic, which was only established at the close of the last 

 century. 



