438 



SCIENCE, 



[Vol. Y., No. 121. 



Gra} r of Harvard university, now on exhibi- 

 tion at the Art museum in Boston. It is an 

 excellent likeness of our distinguished botanist, 

 and a fine specimen of the artist's peculiar 

 work. It has the earnestness and geniality of 

 expression which the passing years seem to 

 impress more forcibly upon Dr. Gray's coun- 

 tenance ; and the artist has so wrought the 

 stubborn material as to impart grace and ap- 

 parent flexibility to the flowing locks. This 

 admirable work of art, representing, as it does 

 in such a thoroughly artistic manner, one of 

 the leading scientific men of America, will be 

 worthily placed upon the walls of the college 

 halls, with which his name and fame will be 

 forever associated. It is a gift to the college 

 from some of the friends and associates of the 

 professor, who have adopted this method of 

 expressing their regard and admiration for his 

 character and scientific achievements. 



THE HONG SAL MUN, OR THE RED 

 ARROW GATE. 



One of the most striking characteristics of 

 far eastern architecture is the singular respect 

 paid to approaches. The means, it may be 

 said, is itself the end. It is not so much what 

 you are to reach, as how 3 T ou are to reach it, 

 that the Korean deems important. * The prac- 

 tice is one branch of the all-pervading cere- 

 monial. To his mind the dignity of an object 

 is best preserved by rendering the access to it 

 imposing. What we see in a nest of Chinese 

 boxes, one within the other, is an illustration 

 of exactly the same principle : the object al- 

 ways eventually found contained in the inner- 

 most is enhanced in value just in proportion 

 to the difficulty of getting at it. 



The approaches vary in kind according to 

 the degree of intimacy the}' bear to the main 

 building. First and outermost stands what is 

 called in Korean the Hong Sal Mun, or ' red 

 arrow gate.' This is a singularly odd and strik- 

 ingly unique structure, and to the student it 

 derives still further interest from being pure- 

 ly tartar. In origin it is religious, or, more 

 exactly, superstitious : for it dates back to 

 the earliest spirit-worship, — the old mytho- 

 logical days, when a hero was a demigod and 

 a king by ancestry divine ; and so, because of 

 his genealog} r , it was erected as an outer portal 

 to his gates. For in the aboriginal faith, un- 

 changed to this day, the king is the lineal de- 

 scendant of the gods, and their representative 

 and mediator to men. Nor did the custom stop 

 there. His glory was reflected upon those who 



carried out his will, — the official class. From 

 his mansion it was copied for theirs ; so that 

 now the distinctive mark of a magistracy is the 

 red arrow gate. This is what it is in Korea. 

 But it is all the more interesting that its ac- 

 quaintance was not made there. In fact, till 

 now, its presence there was not known. It 

 was in Japan that this curious structure first 

 came to the notice of the western world, and 

 then in connection with temples. It is known 

 there by the name of torii, commonly but 

 questionably translated as ' bird's rest.' 

 Originally the portal to Shinto shrines, it was 

 borrowed by Buddhism, and now guards indif- 

 ferently the approach to buildings of either re- 

 ligion. In this it differs entirely from the use 

 to which it is put in Korea, for there it never 

 does service to Buddhist temples. At first 

 sight, the reason is perhaps not evident ; yet 

 its use in the one land explains collaterally its 

 use in the other, and points to a primitive idea, 

 of which both are natural though different ap- 

 plications. In Japan, the mikado is a son of 

 heaven, and head of the Shinto faith, which is 

 the aboriginal belief; church and state are one, 

 Buddhism being but a later addition to the 

 religious wealth of the country ; and, b}^ a mis- 

 taken analogy only, Buddhism came to make 

 use of this gate, to which, in truth, it was per- 

 fectly alien. In Korea, on the other hand, the 

 state is all in all. Instead of the state merging 

 into the church, the church was swallowed up, 

 at least in its outward expressions, b} T the state. 

 Then, when Buddhism came to be ingrafted on 

 the country, there was no excuse, such as ex- 

 isted in Japan, to give it what had then ceased 

 to be looked upon as peculiarly religious : so it 

 continued to be employed, as before, entirely 

 as a sign of kingly authority, and was never 

 converted into another symbol of Buddhistic 

 show. 



Its form differs slightly from that of its 

 Japanese counterpart. It wants the graceful 

 curves that make that so beautiful a structure 

 b} T itself. It lacks also the other's diversity of 

 material. It is built invariably of wood, and 

 its claim to attention arises rather from a cer- 

 tain quaint grotesqueness than from any in- 

 trinsic beauty. Two tall posts, slightly inclined 

 to one another, are crossed by a third, and 

 bound together a short distance above the 

 crossing by still a fourth. All four are per- 

 fectly straight. Starting from the lower, and 

 projecting beyond the upper horizontal piece, 

 is a row of vertical beams of wood, spear- 

 shaped. These are the arrows of the name. 

 In the centre is a design as singular to the eye 

 as it is peculiar for its mystic meaning ; two 



