74 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
Canton and Pelun are described by Mr. Thomson with the most won- 
derful minutiae, and the numerous illustrations which accompany the 
accounts seem to impress the picture more vividly on the mind. Let us 
take one of the smaller sketches for example. It is that of a couple of 
residents of Shanghai who are, let us say, out shopping. “ The substitute for 
the cart here is the w T heelbarrow— a very undignified sort of conveyance, but 
nevertheless comfortable enough when one has grown accustomed to its use. 
It is pleasant to see the Chinese domestics and their families, or native 
ladies, dressed in silks, their glossy hair held in by a broad black velvet 
band, with a spray of pearls in front, being propelled along the land in their 
hand-carts. . . . There is not much risk in a steady-going vehicle like 
this. The coolie who propels it is neither skittish nor given to shieing, and 
the power he puts on is never dangerous.” As regards their industry, too, 
the following page affords a good example. 
The last matter we shall refer to is Mr. Thomson’s account of the Peking 
Observatory. This he describes as a mixture of scientific instruments with 
others of a more mythic character. It was originally founded possibly in 
Marco Polo’s time, and it has instruments of an antique date, and also some 
The Shanghai Wheelbarrow. 
that were put up by the Jesuits in the seventeenth century. Mr. Wylie is, 
however, of opinion that they were put up by Ko-show-king, one of the 
most famous of Chinese astronomers. One of the instruments “ is an astro- 
labe, furnished beneath with a splendid sun-dial, which has long since lost 
its gnomes. The whole, indeed, consists of three astrolabe^, one partly move- 
able and partly fixed in the plane of the ecliptic ; the second turning in a 
centre as a meridian circle ; and the third the azimuth circle.” 
