GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF CHINA AND ITS INHABITANTS. BY JOHN FRANCIS DAVIS, Esq., F.R.S., &c. = GOVERNOR OF HONG-KONG. A NEW EDITION, ENLARGED AND REVISED. IN THREE VOLUMES.-VOL. III. LONDON: CHARLES KNIGHT & CO., LUDGATE STREET. 1844. Bamboo Water-wheel Garden Pavilion Bridge for Foot-passengers Chinese Camel Driver Fishing Corvorant Insects producing Wax Joo-ee, composed of Jade Cave of Camoens, Macao. Mode of Irrigation Copper Coin 23 36 46 63 67 78 THE CHINESE. CHAPTER XVIII. ARTS AND INVENTIONS. THERE appear to be reasonable grounds for the belief, that what are justly considered in Europe as three of the most important inventions or discoveries of modern times, the art of printing, the composition of gunpowder, and the magnetic compass, had their first origin in China. However much we may have outstripped them in the use and application of these instruments or agents, the Chinese can urge claims to the priority of possession, which are sufficient to convince any unprejudiced person; and it seems fair to conclude that the knowledge or tradition of these contrivances travelled slowly westward through the channels of Oriental commerce, and were obscurely derived, by those who first imported them to Europe, by the way of Asia Minor or the Red Sea. There cannot be the least doubt of the art of printing having been practised in China during the tenth century of our era. The precise mode in which they operate is certainly different from ours; but the main principle, that of multiplying and cheapening books by saving the time and labour of transcription, is altogether the same. Shortly previous to the commencement of the Soong dynasty, about the middle of the tenth century, a minister of state, named Foong-taou, is said to have introduced to the notice of government the art of takVOL. III. B |