[ 3 
jn a way of informing ourfelves. I have endeavour’d 
for fever al years to procure fpecimens of the different 
mines, but could not yet obtain them. If, hereafter, 
I can difcover any thing worth while in this matter* 
I (hall not fail to communicate it. As to what re- 
gards petrifactions, I have only feen a few crabs, 
pieces of wood, and fome bones, which I take to be 
thofe of buffaloes. I have fent into France fpecimens 
of all the fimple drugs fold by the druggifts at Peking; 
among which are fome bits of minerals, petrified 
bones, & c. to which I expeCt an anfwer next year, 
and fhall be better able to chufe what to fend of fuch 
things, as fhall be defired. This collection is one 
of the affairs, that coft me moft trouble. 
The article, that regards the deluge, makes me 
imagine, that the lift of thefe things comes from the 
celebrated Sir Hans Sloane. I fhould be glad to have 
an opportunity of doing him pleafure, and I would 
do it moft readily. All I know of it is this; the 
Chinefe have but a very confufed idea of an univerfal 
deluge. They only conclude from things feen upon 
the furface of the earth, that there muft formerly 
have been fome terrible hurricane, and that the fea 
had cover’d the face of the earth. A great mandarin, 
who had a better underftanding than the Chinefe 
commonly have, being fent into Ho nan , to vifit fe- 
veral places, obferved, upon the top of a very hio-h 
mountain, a kind of bafrn, the circumference *of 
which, formed by the mountain, was filled with dif- 
ferent figures of fi flies, (hells, and marine plants, 
imprefled upon ftones : He faid to another mandarin, 
who accompanied him, <c Certainly the fea muft have 
I* been here: thefe fifhes, (hells, and, plants are 
Kk 2 <{ found 
