Owing to the same derivation, there is in the appearance of Chinese edifices a want of durable solidity, while the use of wooden columns in lieu of stone adds to the defect. These columns are commonly thin in proportion to their height. As we refer the origin of the stone pillars in European architecture to the trunks of large trees, tapering in proportion as they rise from the ground, so the Chinese pillars may be traced to the original use of the bamboo, which in its slender proportions, and nearly uniform diameter throughout the whole length, assimilates to their columns at present.

The ornamental and honorary gateways (sometimes improperly termed triumphal arches) in the middle of Chinese streets, are of a similar construction. Their beauty arises wholly from the painting and gilding,

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and not from the proportions, which are weak and flimsy. The roof or summit, and what may be called the entablature, overweigh altogether the long and slender pillars beneath. Every considerable house, as well as every temple, has a gateway before it constructed on the same general principles, and there is a high and broad passage through the centre, with a smaller one on either side. The same circumstances that may be ranked as drawbacks in general to Chinese architecture, fit it, at the same time, peculiarly to uses where only lightness is required. The ornamental pavilions in their gardens, often situated in the midst of sheets of water, and approached by bridges, are not altogether inelegant structures, affording at the same time a cool retreat in summer evenings. Of the more solid architecture of the

to command important points, as that described in Lord Macartney's embassy, at the confluence of the canal with the Peking river. These partake exactly of the structure of the Great Wall, being built of brick on a foundation of stone, with a height of from thirtyfive to forty feet. The entrance is an archway in the side of the tower, at some height from the ground, so as to be accessible only by a ladder or steps. Of their more considerable forts, by far the best specimens in the whole empire are those four or five, built at an enormous expense, at the entrance of the Canton river. In forcing the passage by these batteries in September, 1834, we found that a few rounds of thirty-two pound shot from his Majesty's ships Imogene and Andromache beat in a large portion of the castellated summit of the stone wall upon the garrison, and likewise knocked several of the lower ports or embrasures into one; but the lowest portion, or foundation, of the walls was of such immense solidity, that some hours of battering would be required to demolish them, and the only effect we could perceive through our glasses was the scaling off of large masses from the face of the stone work, wherever the shot had struck.

Of Chinese bridges, some have been very much exaggerated in the accounts of Du Halde and the missionaries, as appears from the later report concerning the bridge at Foochow-foo, visited during the unsuccessful commercial voyage of the ship Amherst, in 1832. This same bridge, which proved a

very poor structure after all, had been extolled by the Jesuits as something quite extraordinary. A bridge of ninety-one arches, being in fact a very long causeway, was passed by Lord Macartney between Soo-chow and Hâng-chow, and near the lake called Taehoo. The highest arch, however, was supposed to be between twenty and thirty feet in height, and the whole length of the causeway half a mile. It was thrown across an arm of the lake, on the eastern side of the canal. The late Sir George Staunton observed a bridge between Peking and Tartary, built across a river which was subject to being swelled by mountain-floods. This was erected upon caissons of wattles filled with stones. It appeared to have been built with expedition, and at small cost, where the most solid bridge would be endangered by inun dations. The caissons were fixed by large perpendicular spars, and over the whole were laid planks, hurdles, and gravel.1 It was only in Keâng-nan that solid bridges were observed to be thrown over the canal, being constructed of coarse grey marble, or a reddish granite. Some of the arches were semi-cir cular, others the transverse section of an ellipse, and others again approached the shape of a horse-shoe, or Greek n, the space being widest at top. In the ornamental

AFTER a curious analysis of the great Chinese work on materia medica, which, although its name Pun-tsaou might literally imply that it was merely a herbal or history of plants, is in fact a classification of the chief productions of nature in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, M. Rémusat comes to the following conclusion: "I think we may infer that natural history has engaged the attention of the Chinese from the remotest antiquity, aud that it became in consequence an object of pursuit among neighbouring nations, which caused it to make some progress. The mode of writing employed in those countries, leading the people who used it to establish genera and orders, furnished them with the elements of an excellent nomenclature, and put them in the way of classification. .. All that could be learned from mere superficial inspection they have observed and recorded: all that demanded reflection or delicate research, they have remained ignorant of, or misapprehended. Superficial, however, as are the ideas they have collected, they constitute a scientific whole, which derives some value from the method to which it has been subjected. We

1 Using the same written characters as Japan and Cochin-China.

conclude with a remark which is not destitute of interest to science itself: it is, that the Chinese and Japanese descriptions, when accompanied by the figures they refer to, may, with all their imperfections, enable us to distinguish the species we do, from those we do not possess, augment our knowledge of facts, diffuse some light upon the distributions of the natural objects of the ancient world, and consequently may be consulted with advantage even by naturalists, so long as circumstances shall continue to interdict European philosophers from countries so abundant in objects of natural history, and hitherto so little explored." In the sixteenth chapter allusion was made to the advantageous hints which the constitution of their written character had, from the earliest ages, afforded to the Chinese for a systematic nomenclature, and a rational classification of natural objects into certain genera or families, according to the most striking and obvious analogies that existed among them. two hundred and fourteen roots, under which the whole language is arranged in Chinese dictionaries, include about one hundred and sixty, which serve at once (with the aid of other characters) as component parts in the

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written designations of all known objects in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, and as heads under which they have been classed. "From this simple arrangement," observes M. Rémusat," the very ideas appear which regulated the formation of the compound signs; which ideas frequently coincide with such as intelligent naturalists might acknowledge and adopt as a basis for their arrangements. This may be observed on a glance at even their modern dictionaries, although the written language of China has undergone alterations of all kinds, and admitted many irregularities, which have affected the nomenclature of natural objects as well as other parts of the language. In turning over the leaves of the commonest of these works, we easily recognize genuine natural families, imperfect, no doubt, and founded upon inaccurate views, imperfect observation, and an unphilosophical analysis; but discovering almost always a judicious design, with sound and sometimes ingenious conclusions."

Of the thirty roots, or radical characters, which constitute the genera or families above alluded to, fourteen include the animal kingdom. The mammalia are comprised under nine of these, viz. three families of carnivora, one of rodentia, and three of ruminantia, as oxen, sheep, deer: while the horse and swine are the types of two other families. In the details of the above arrangement there has been (as might be expected) much confusion and a want of discrimination, in classing together animals between whom there was no real analogy, as well as separating others that were nearly allied: the ape and monkey tribes, for instance, are classed with the dogs; and numerous other examples might be adduced of the same kind. Birds, one of the most numerous class of animals in China, are all comprised in one family. Then come the tortoise and frog tribes under two heads. Fishes constitute one family, and improperly include the cetaceous and saurian tribes, as well as lobsters, crabs and some of the molluscæ. The fourteenth family of animals, in the Chinese dictionary system, consists of insects.

This may serve to convey some idea of the notions which the Chinese have of classifica

tion, and show at the same time in what they have failed. Their vegetable kingdom is divided into eleven principal families. The first comprises all herbaceous plants, which have a common type, and are very numerous: the second family has wood for its radical character, and includes all trees, as well as plants with a woody stem: the bamboo, on account of its importance in use, and the great number of its varieties, stands at the head of the fifth class, and includes under it all reedy plants. No less than four separate radical characters serve as the heads under which the corn plants and esculent grasses have been arranged, and it follows of course that many repetitions and superfluous distinctions have taken place. The four together should have formed one natural family. The eight family consists of leguminous plants, and has the bean for its type: the ninth comprises the cucurbitaceous, or gourd tribes: and under the tenth are included only about a dozen species and varieties of the alliaceous plants, as garlic, onions, and leeks. importance attached to some of the smaller divisions no doubt arose from their having been principal articles of food from the first. The eleventh and last family consists of plants analogous to the hemp, which, from its consequence, has from the easliest times been designated by a simple and radical character.

The

The mineral kingdom has been classed by the Chinese lexicographers under five radical characters. The first family consists of gems, of which the famous yu, or jade, is the type: to these have been improperly added all factitious stones, with glass, amber, &c. The four remaining families are distinguished into stones, earths, salts, and metals. "It must be remembered," observes M. Rémusat very correctly of the system, "that this was not a methodical or systematic arrangement contrived by naturalists, in order to classify the objects they wished to describe; but a mere distribution of written signs, brought together according to their orthography, and classed by the makers of dictionaries, solely with a view to facilitating and expediting the search for them. It cannot have escaped observation, that in this composition of signs there are certain scientific ideas whence this remarkable classification arises, as it were,