designate geographical names is limited and 
as certain characters are particularly in, favour 
for names of departments or districts, it 
happens very often that one geographical name 
relates to a great number of places. For 
instance Siting now-a-days the 
name of a district in the province Honan, 
was, at the time of the Post-Han, a country 
in Kan-su, at the time of the Wu a district in 
Kiangsi. During the Thing dynasty Si-ping 
was in Yiin-nan. The name of a province 
■nan (the meaning of the two 
the-South-of-the-river) occurs 
In the Pen-ts‘ao occur also very frequently 
names of ancient countries not included in 
China. These must be sought either in the 
histories of the various Dynasties, which al- 
ways contain at the end notices of foreign 
countries, — or in the celebrated work of Ma- 
tuan-lin Wen-sien-tfnng- 
htao (380 books), written in the 13th century. 
I need not observe, that you often seek in 
vain and that the demand for some explana- 
tion from the native scholars is equally fruit- 
less. 
7L Kian 9 
characters is to- 
often in the Pen-ts‘ao. Here it does not. mean 
the country to the South of the Yellow river 
so called by the present dynasty, (An-hui and 
Kiang-su,) but is to be understood as the 
Kiang-nan province of the Dang dynasty to 
the South of the Yang-tse-kiang, comprising 
the greatest part of the modern province 
Fu-kien and Kiang-si, The name ra 'jffj- 
Nan-liai (South sea) refered in ancient times 
to Kuang-tung, but sometimes the Chinese 
also understand by this name the Indian Ocean 
and Archipelago. Cf. the historical maps in the 
Hai kuo-tu-chi, a work on historical geography, 
1844. It is clear, ‘that, the greatest errors can 
be committed by the reader unacquainted with 
the time at which the respective Chinese 
authors wrote. In the year 1 842 Biot published 
a useful work, Dietionnire des noms anciens et 
modernes des villes et arrondissements compvis 
dans P, Empire Chinois. This work is translat- 
ed from the SjJ Kuang-yu-lti , a 
small geography of the Empire, and arranged 
in alphabetical order, but it proves to be insuf- 
ficient to explain the geographical names, which 
occur in the Pen-ts‘ao. The most complete 
work of Chinese geography, ancient and mo- 
dern is, as is known the -|r 
Ta-tsing-i-t'ung-chi, or the Geography of the 
Empire of the present dynasty in COO books. 
But it is impossible even for the Chinese to 
find out, without any data, a geographical 
name in this bulky work. The Chinese have 
no alphabetical index in their works, in order 
to facilitate reference to the book. There is 
however a Chinese geographical dictionary 
extant, which in some degree meets these 
wants, the Jg jjfjl ^ Li-tai-ti-li 
chi in 20 books. This work is much more 
complete, than the Kuang-yii-ki and the geo- 
graphical names, ancient and modern, are 
arranged according to a system under about 
1000 characters. It is not quite easy to look 
for a name in this book, but it is at least not 
impossible to find it out. In disposing these 
1 000 characters after the radicals, this g :o- 
graphical dictionary can be made more prac- 
tical for consultation. 
Such are the difficulties to be overcome, if 
i Chinese writings, and especially botanical 
works, are to be rightly understood. 
In order, that Western science may profit 
by a study of Chinese botanical works, it is 
necessary not only to understand the Chinese 
writing, but also to recognize the plants there 
described. This leads us to a new difficulty. 
I If the plants in question are not generally 
known, it is for the most part impossible to 
recognize them from the vague description of 
the Chinese botanists. Sometimes the good 
drawings in the Chi-wu-ming Sec. permit us at 
least to determine the order to which the 
plant belongs. But the only exact method of 
identifying Chinese names of plants, with 
their scientific names, is to obtain the plants 
in n at ura and to determine them. This is, 
; however, not possible in all cases. As Mr; 
Sampson rightly observes in his article on 
! Palms (Hotes and Queries III p. 131) the 
! carpenter has a (popular) name for each kind 
: of wood he uses, and the woodsman one 
j for each kind of tree he fells; but the names 
; are generally different, and neither the car- 
penter nor the woodsman is able to identify 
both, the tree and the wood. In the same 
manner the Chinese apothecaries know nothing 
about the origin of the pharmaceutical prep- 
arations, they sell in their shops. The 
medical plants reach the apothecary shops 
| for the most part cut in little pieces or pul- 
verised. It is very difficult to find out the 
man who collects them, and, in addition to 
this a great part of the Chinese medical 
plants grow in Ssu-ehuan or other provinces 
hardly visited by Europeans. It is impossi- 
ble, I believe, to find out, now a days a Chi- 
nese. who knows all the plants described in 
the Pen-ts‘ao or at least a great part of them. 
You cannot even find a gardener, who is ac- 
quainted with the all ornamental flowers 
cultivated in China; each gardener knows 
only the few plants or trees he cultivates in 
his garden. But it can be said, that- the 
names of plants, which occur in the Pen-t.s‘ao, 
i are employed up to the present time in China 
and well-known by the specialists for the re- 
' spective plants. 
i Our botanists, who coMect plants in foreign 
countries do not trouble themselves generally 
I about the indigenous names of the plants and 
