[ 3°9 ] 
XLVII. Extra&s of two Letters from Father 
Gaubil, of the Society of Jefus, at Peking 
in China, tra?ifated from the French. 
To Dr. Cromwell Mortimer, M. D. Secretary 
to the Royal Society, 
Peking, Nov. 2, 1752. 
Read Nov. i5,f"¥"^HE chronology of China, which I 
* 753 - f en t t0 France in 1745), had been 
long the objedt of the refear ches of the late M. Freret, 
who did me the honour to alk my fentiments upon the 
edays, which he fent me. This correfpondence con- 
tinued many years 5 and that learned man wrote feve- 
ral very curiou# didertations upon that fubjedt. I have 
not feen the lad, which mud have been published in 
the eighteenth tome of the Memoirs of the Academy 
of Infcriptions Belles Lettres. I wrote to feveral 
perfons detach’d pieces of what came into my thoughts 
on the fubjedt, as they confulted me upon it. To 
avoid many inconveniences, I thought proper myfelf 
to diged my own rough draughts upon that topic ; 
and accordingly fent the refult in three parts to France 
in 1745?- 
What I have thus done in chronology, I am de- 
firous of doing with regard to adronomy, or, at lead, 
furnilhing materials ranged in order upon that fcience. 
For it is necedary to draw up anew, or, at lead, to 
corredt, what has been printed in the work, which 
Mr. Codard has criticized in the PhiloJ. Tranfaff. 
N° 483, p. 476, 477, & feq> It was not fent from 
hence 
