204 
(the only coins which the Chinefe have had 
from time immemorial) ftrung together 
upon a fort of packthread by means of a 
hole which is in the middJe, contrary . 
to ail the coins of other countries, as 
may be feen in the above figure. Thefe 
‘copper coins, which are the only ftandard 
coin in China, are reckoned by tens and 
multiples of tens like the Chinefe Abacus, 
and, when ftrung upon a thread, hear a 
ftreng refemblance to the beads of the 
Abacus, and the one feems an imitation 
of the other. 
Tt is a curious faé&t, that the ancient 
Roman Abacus, as exhibited by Vel/erus 
and Picnorius, proves to be very fimilar to 
the Chinefe, as has been already mentioned 
a century agoin the Philofophical Tranfec- 
tions by a fellow of that learned fociety* ; 
who, however, was deceived in believing 
that the Chinefe ufed to reckon from the left 
to the right,contrary to what is afferted by 
Martiniez, the Jefuit, and La Loubere, the 
ambafiador at Sia, who both noticed it. 
Not only does the inftrument ufed for 
reckoning both by the Chinefe and the 
Romans bear fo ftrong a refemblance ; 
but, what. is more curious ftill, a great 
fimilarity exifts between the Chinefeand the 
Roman cyphers. The Romans, contrary 
to the cuftom of the Greeks and Phceni- 
cians, from whom they had received their 
alphabet, exprefied their numbers one, 119, 
three, not by the firft letters of their alpha- 
bet, but by 
The Chinefe exprefs them in the fame 
way, but in a horizontal pofition; 
eee, —e 
I 
The Romans expreffed their number 
ée# thus: 
_ The Chinefe, changing again its fitua- 
tion, exprefs it thus : 
The Romans exprefled eleven, trv elwe, 
thirteen, thus ; 
XI XI. XL. 
* Vol. xvi, 

Dr, Hager on the Chinefe Notation, 
7 
[O&ober Ty 
Tie Chine’e, writing perpendicu'arly, 
exprefs them thus: 
wre, eee, ———, 
We need only turn the paper to fee 
the great fimilarity. 
The Romans exprefled twenty and thir- 
ty in this way: 
7 r 
XX XXX 
The Chinefe exprefs it, fometimes by 
putting the numbers ¢wo and three before 
the number #ez, and fometimes, according 
to the Romans, in this way : 
++ 
But what is more fingular, and feems 
{carcely to be a mere accident, is, that 
the three Roman cyphers: 
oT ee 
or, one, five, and tem, reprefented, as we 
fee, by anI, aU, and an X, have the fame 
expreffion in Chinefe, as in Latin: One 
in Chinefe is Yee, ér J, which agrees with 
the found of the Roman I. Five is called 
U, which agrees withthe Roman'V. Tex 
is fee, but with a found approaching to z, 
like /hi; which was expreffed in Greek 
by € Now it is well known that the 
Romans had no X in their language, 
but what they borrowed from the Greek 
alphabet; fo that this. Chinefe word 
again -perfectly agrees with the origi« 
nal found of the Roman X. 
Allthis may be explained, if we refleét on 
what has been dilcoveredin our own time, 
viz. that not only the fame properties 
whichPythagoras, the founder of the Italie. 
{chool, attributed to the even and odd 
numbers, have been known and attributed 
to them by the Chinefe from the moft an- 
cient times ; but alfo that the whole 
mujfical fyfter: of that philofophers is 
taken from the Chinefe*.” If we then 
confider that Pythagoras had been wn In- 
dia, and perhaps as far as Chiza, and that 
he founded a famous fchool in Italy, in 
which Numa, the legiflator of the Ro- 
mans, was believed to have been inftruét- 
edf; we have a ready way to fuch a 
communication, JosepH HaGER. 
Lindon, Sept. 17+ 


* See Mémoires des Miffions de Pekin, 
tem. vi. upon the Chinefe mufic. 
f See Dintarch’s Life of Numai 
and 
b 
