Travels in China by Sir John Barrow (top e book reader .txt) 📕

This is clearly a system of decimal arithmetic, which, for the ease, simplicity, and convenience of its operations, it were to be wished was generally adopted in Europe, instead of the endless ways in which the integer is differently divided in different countries, and in the different provinces of the same country. The Swan-pan would be no bad instrument for teaching to a blind person the operations of arithmetic. Yet, paradoxical as it may seem, these operations, as performed by the Chinese, like their written characters, require more the exercise of the eye than of the mind. The simple addition or subtraction of the little balls to, or from, the middle bar, shews at once by their disposition on the board the result of any required combination. The invention of it I think may fairly be attributed to the Chinese; though it has been compared, how justly I cannot pretend to say, to the Roman abacus.

It has been observed, and perhaps with a great deal of truth, that the arts which supply the luxuries, the conveniences, and the necessaries of life, have derived but little advantage in the first instance from the labours and speculations of philosophers; that the ingenuity of artists, the accidental or progressive discoveries of common workmen, in any particular branch of business, have frequently afforded data, from which, by the reasonings and investigations of philosophers, hints have sometimes been struck out for arriving at the same ends by a shorter way; that the learned are therefore more properly to be considered as improvers than inventors. Of this mortifying truth, the Chinese afford many strong examples in their arts and manufactures, and particularly in some of those operations that have a reference to chemistry, which cannot here be said to exist as a science, although several branches are in common practice as chemical arts. Without possessing any theory concerning the affinities of bodies, or attractions of cohesion or aggregation, they clarify the muddy waters of their rivers, for immediate use, by stirring them round with a piece of alum in a hollow bamboo; a simple operation which, experience has taught them, will cause the clayey particles to fall to the bottom: and having ascertained the fact, they have given themselves no further trouble to explain the phenomenon.

In like manner, they are well acquainted with the effect of steam upon certain bodies that are immersed in it; that its heat is much greater than that of boiling water. Yet, although for ages they have been in the constant practice of confining it in close vessels, something like Papin's digester, for the purpose of softening horn, from which their thin, transparent, and capacious lanterns are made, they seem not to have discovered its extraordinary force when thus pent up; at least, they have never thought of applying that power to purposes which animal strength has not been adequate to effect. They extract from the three kingdoms of nature the most brilliant colours, which they have also acquired the art of preparing and mixing, so as to produce every intermediate tint; and, in their richest and most lively hues, they communicate these colours to silks, cottons, and paper; yet they have no theory on colours.

The process of smelting iron from the ore is well known to them; and their cast ware of this metal is remarkably thin and light. They have also an imperfect knowledge of converting it into steel, but their manufactures of this article are not to be mentioned with those of Europe, I will not say of England, because it stands unrivalled in this and indeed almost every other branch of the arts. Though their cast-iron wares appear light and neat, and are annealed in heated ovens, to take off somewhat of their brittleness, yet their process of rendering cast iron malleable is imperfect, and all their manufactures of wrought iron are consequently of a very inferior kind, not only in workmanship but also in the quality of the metal. In most of the other metals their manufactures are above mediocrity. Their trinkets of silver fillagree are extremely neat, and their articles of tootanague are highly finished.

With the use of cannon they pretend to have been long acquainted. When Gengis-Khan entered China, in the thirteenth century, artillery and bombs and mines are said to have been employed on both sides; yet when the city of Macao, in the year 1621, made a present to the Emperor of three pieces of artillery, it was found necessary to send along with them three men to instruct the Chinese how to use them. The introduction of matchlocks, I am inclined to think, is of no very ancient date; they wear no marks of originality about them, like other articles of Chinese invention; on the contrary, they are exact models of the old Portugueze matchlock; and differ in nothing from those which still continue to be carried, as an article of commerce, by this nation to Cochin-China. There can be no doubt, however, of the use of gunpowder being known to the Chinese long before the Christian era.

In a very ancient treatise on the military art, there is a detailed account of the manner how to annoy an enemy's camp, by springing a mine with gunpowder; but this treatise makes no mention of cannon. Fire-works, made generally of gunpowder, filings of zinc, camphor, and other ingredients, are described in various old tracts. It is easily conceived, that the deflagration of nitre was likely to be first noticed in those countries where it is the spontaneous and abundant production of the earth, which is the case on the elevated desarts of Tartary and Thibet, and on the low and extensive plains of India and China. The gunpowder, however, made by the Chinese is extremely bad. They have no particular manufactory, but each individual makes his own. It is in fact one part of the soldier's employment to prepare his own gunpowder. The usual proportions, according to Van-ta-gin's information are,