786 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[Aprii 5, 1873. 
Take of Gum arabic.gij 
Water.f|ij_ 
Syr. lacto-phosphate of lime . rtvi 
Cod-liver oil.f 3 viij 
Essential oil bitter almonds . 6 drops. 
Rub the gum, water, and syrup together, until a smooth 
mucilage is made, then add the oil gradually with con¬ 
stant stirring, and, lastly, the oil of bitter almonds. 
Thus made, each tablespoonful of cod-liver oil and 
lacto-phosphate of lime contains four (4) grains lacto- 
phosphate of lime and 50 per cent, of cod-liver oil. The 
gum in the above should be selected, ground, and passed 
through a sieve of 60 meshes to the inch. Cod-liver oil 
and lacto-phosphate of lime prepared in this manner forms 
a preparation free from unpleasant taste and odour, and 
enables the practitioner to administer these valuable re¬ 
medies without repugnance on the part of the patient. 
COMPETITIVE EXAMINATIONS IN CHINA. 
The following description of the method of conducting 
the grand examination in China, is from the special corre¬ 
spondent of the Illustrated London Neivs :— 
“ Mr. Simpson, while at Pekin, visited the Wen-Miao, or 
Temple of the ethical religion bequeathed to the Chinese 
nation by their great philosopher Confucius, or Kung-Eu- 
Tzse, who lived five centuries before Jesus Christ. In this 
temple is the place for the grand examinations. There are 
other Examination Courts in every provincial capital, 
where the first two degrees can be given; but the two 
higher degrees can only be competed for at Pekin. The 
Chwang-Yuen is the fourth degree, and is equivalent to 
our Senior Wrangler. He who gains this degree is also 
called ‘One of the Ten Thousand.’ The place where the 
examination is held contains ten thousand, and hence the 
name, for there is only one man out of that number who 
can receive the honour once in three years. Examination 
after examination, men come up to compete, till they grow 
old and grey; such is the desire to achieve this high dis¬ 
tinction. It is told of one man that he competed every 
three years till he was eighty. When men persevere till 
this great age the Emperor generally confers some honour 
upon them. The competition at Pekin is a hard trial. It 
lasts nine days, and is divided into three ‘goes.’ Eor 
three days and three nights the ‘ten thousand ’ are con¬ 
fined in pens, each man being imprisoned, so that he is 
totally separated from his neighbours, and there he has to 
write his essay or paper on the subject given out by the 
judges, which he does not know till he is in his cell. 
Paper, with an official stamp, is given out for him to write 
upon, and all depends upon his memory of the classics. 
Miniature copies have been produced, so that they could 
be smuggled in, but it is a crime to print or sell such copies 
now. ‘I have read,’ says Mr. Simpson, ‘some of the 
efforts produced. They remind one much of early school 
essays, or essays for young men’s associations for mental 
cultivation at home, but they are embellished with endless 
quotations from the classics, and the style may be described 
as the sign-board style ; a flowery phraseology largely 
predominates.” 
“ The examination court at Pekin is usually spoken of by 
the English residents there as a “ hall of examination,” 
but it is difficult to see how the word “ hall ” can be 
applied to it. A hundred and twenty rows of small, low, 
badly-built sheds, with a watch-tower in the centre, would 
not resemble what we should term a hall. For each stu¬ 
dent there is a small cell, little more than a yard square, 
and with height only for a man to stand up in. These 
cells are built in rows of about forty-five in the row, each 
row being separated from the next by a narrow passage 
just wide enough for a person to pass. There are about 
120 of these rows, the whole number of cells being 9999. 
At the north-west comer a number of new cells are being 
constructed to afford more accommodation. There is a set 
of houses at the northern part for the examiners or j udges 
to lodge in ; for these persons are kept there the whole 
time, so that they cannot be communicated with by friends 
of the competitors. The tower in the centre is occupied 
during the whole time by watchers, to see that there is 
no communication between the students themselves or with 
anyone without the place. There are smaller towers at 
the corners for the same purpose, and guards walk along 
on the inside of the walls to prevent anything passing close 
by. There is a central passage up the middle of this place, 
and on each side of it are boilers for preparing food, and 
large earthen jars to keep a supply of water for drink. 
“ Each cell has two grooves in it, and boards are let into 
them—one for a seat, the other for a desk. The lower one, 
which serves as a seat, has to serve also as a bed. Each 
student is allowed to bring in some article of clothing to 
wrap himself in when he goes to sleep, which must be done 
in a sitting posture or doubled up on the board. Stamped 
paper is supplied to each man, as stated above, in order to 
prevent tricks; he has an ink-slab with pens, a teapot and 
teacup—such are the conditions under which a Chinese 
student has to compete for honours. It has been remarked 
that the competitiors here are not boys or all young men. 
Men of all ages come from every part of the country ; but 
the Chinese student is seldom a lean, worn-out man, as our 
ideas of such a character might picture him. The degree 
of Sieu-Tsai is equivalent to Bachelor of Arts, Chii-Jen is 
equal to M.A., and Chin-Shu corresponds to our Doctor. 
Chang-Yuen, as was stated, is the highest honour, the degree 
exclusively conferred at Pekin, and is only awarded to one 
person every three years. All the other competitive exami¬ 
nation courts in China may be understood from this one at 
Pekin. At Canton the court has 7500 cells, each 3 ft. by 
4 ft. in dimensions. ‘ When a man,’ says Mr. Simpson, 
‘ gains any of the degrees of these examinations, his name 
is placed on the front of his father’s house, and the village 
or town is proud of the distinction. Place and preferment 
are before him. He may rise to the highest dignities of 
the State. If he attains to great renown as a literary man, 
there are Confucian temples where tablets are erected to 
celebrities, and his name may be handed down to pos¬ 
terity.’ ” 
PROFESSOR TYNDALL ON LIGHT * 
(Continued from p. 770.) 
We shall study this subject of the polarization of light 
with great ease and profit by means of a crystal of tour¬ 
maline. And let us start with a clear conception of an 
ordinary beam of light. It has been already explained 
that the vibrations of the individual ether-particles are 
executed across the line of propagation. In the case of 
ordinary light we are to figure the ether-particles as 
vibrating in all directions, or azimuths, as it is sometimes 
expressed, across this line. Now, in a plate of tourmaline 
cut parallel to the axis of the crystal, the beam of incident 
light is divided into two, one vibrating parallel to the- 
axis of the crystal, the other at right angles to the axis. 
The grouping of the molecules, and of the ether associated 
with the molecules, reduces all the vibrations incident 
upon the crystal to these two directions. One of these 
beams, namely, that one whose vibrations are perpendicular 
to the axis, is quenched with exceeding rapidity by the 
crystal, so that, after having passed through a very small 
thickness of the crystal, the light emerges with all its; 
vibrations reduced to a single plane. In this condition ifc 
is what we call a beam of plane polarized light. 
A moment’s reflection will show, if what has been stated 
be correct, that, on placing a second plate of tourmaline 
with its axis parallel to the first, the light will pass through 
both; but that if the axes be crossed, the light that passes 
* Abstract of a series of lectures delivered in the Cooper 
Institute, New York, and reported in the New York 
Tribune. 
