Portraits and other subjects are also done on glass, but the indifferent execution is rendered still more conspicuous by the transparency of the ground; the Hindus purchase large quantities of glass pictures of their common gods and goddesses. Looking. glasses are also painted on the back with singular effect by removing the quicksilver with a steel point according to a design previously sketched, and then painting the denuded portion.

Sculpture is confined chiefly to making idols, or carving animals to adorn balustrades and temples. Idols are usually made of wood or clay, and sometimes of stone; they are generally fully dressed and seated, the face and hands being the only parts of the body seen, so that little or no opportunity is afforded for imitating the muscles and contour of the figure. The hideous monsters which guard the threshold of temples often exhibit more artistic conception than the unmeaning images enshrined within, and some of them even display considerable character and proportion. Among their best performances of this sort are the clay models sold in Canton, representing different costumes and craftsmen; and the Chinese museums brought to the United States contain good specimens of their efforts in this kind of modelling. Animals are sculptured in granite, showing great skill and patience in the detail work, and bungling deformity in the model, resulting in the production of such animals, indeed, as were probably never beheld in any world. Images of lions, tigers, tortoises, elephants, rams, and other animals, ornament bridges, temples, or tombs. Capt. Loch says the elephants were the only tolerable representations in the long avenue of warriors, horses, lions, &c., leading up to the tombs of the emperors at Nanking. The united effect of the elaborate carving and grotesque ornaments seen upon the roofs, woodwork, and pillars of buildings, is not devoid of beauty, though in their details there is a great violation of the true principles of art, just as the expression of a face may please which still has not a handsome feature in it. Short columns of stone or wood, surmounted by a lion, and a lizard or dragon twisting himself about the shaft, the whole cut out of one block; or a lion rampant with half a dozen cubs crawling over his body, are among the ornaments of temples and graves, which the taste of the people highly admires.

The Chinese have a sense of the ridiculous, and exhibit it both in their sculpture and drawing in many ways. Lampoons, pas

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quinades, and caricatures are common, nor is any person spared by their pens or pencils, below the dragon's throne, though they prefer subjects not likely to involve the authors, as in the one here selected from the many elicited during the war.

By far the best specimens of sculpture are their imitations of fruits, flowers, animals, &c., cut out of soft stone, gnarled roots of bamboo, wood, and other materials; but in these we admire rather the unwearied patience and cunning of the workmen in making grotesque combinations and figures out of apparently intractable materials, than seek for any indications of a pure taste or embodyment of an exalted conception. Carving inscriptions upon the faces of rocks, as was the case in India and Arabia (Job xxx. 24), is not unknown, and the picturesque characters of the language make a pretty appearance in such situations. These inscriptions are usually of a religious character, more or less connected with fung-shuui or geomancy.

The small advances made in architecture may be ascribed to this same feature in Chinese mind, for if they had not enough conception of the beautiful when exhibited in the comparatively cheap form of a painting or a statue, they were not likely to

attempt it in the grander and more expensive form of a palace or a temple. The same trait was exhibited in the Huns and other nations of the Mongolian stock, long after they had settled in Europe and western Asia, and it was not till their amalgamation with the imaginative nations of southern Europe had changed their original character that high performances in art appeared. If the Chinese had a model of the Parthenon or the Pantheon in their own country, belike they would measurably imitate it in every part, but they would erect a dozen in the same way. Perhaps an infusion of elegance and taste would have been imparted to them if the people had had frequent intercourse with more imaginative nations, but when there were no models of this superior kind to follow, there was no likelihood of their originating them. In many of the lighter edifices, as pavilions, rest-houses, summer-houses, and arbors, there is, however, a degree of taste and adaptation that is unusual in most of their buildings, and quite in keeping with their fondness for tinsel and gilding rather than solidity and grandeur. On this point, Lay's remark on the characteristics of the Attic, Egyptian, Gothic, and Chinese styles, is apposite. "If we would see beauty, size, and proportion in all their excellence, we should look for it among the models of Greece; if we desire something that was wild and stupendous, we should find it in Egypt; if grandeur, with a never-sated minuteness of decoration, please us, we need look no further than to a cathedral; and lastly, if the romantic and the old fashioned attract our fancy, the Chinese can point us to an exhaustless store in the recesses of their vast empire. A lack of science and of conception is seen in all their buildings, but fancy seems to have had free license to gambol at pleasure; and what the architect wanted in developing a scheme he made up in a redundancy of imagination."

The Chinese have made but little progress in investigating the principles and forces of mechanics, but have practically understood most of the common powers in the various applications of which they are capable. The lever, wheel and axle, wedge, and pinion, are all known in some form or other, but the modification of the wedge in the screw is not frequent. The sheave-blocks on board their vessels have only one pulley, but they understand the advantages of the windlass, and have adopted the capstan in the working of vessels, driving of piles, raising of timber, &c.

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They have long understood the mode of raising weights by a hooked pulley running on a rope, attached at each end to a cylinder of unequal diameters; by this contrivance, as the rope wound around the larger diameter it ran off the smaller one, raising the weight to the amount of the difference between the circumference of the two cylinders, at a very small expense of strength. The graduations of the weighing beam indicate their acquaintance with the relations between the balance and the weight on the long and short arm of the lever, and this mode of weighing is preferred for gold, pearls, and other valuable things. The overshot water-wheel is used to turn stones for grinding wheat, and set in motion pestles to hull rice, and press oil from seeds; and the undershot power for raising water. There is a great expenditure of human strength in most of their contrivances, and in many the object seems to have been rather to give a direction to this strength than to abridge it. For instance, they prefer to put a number of slings upon a heavy stone and carry if off bodily on poles, than to make a low car to roll it on at half the expense of human power.

In other departments of science, the attainments of the people are few and imperfect. Chemistry and metallurgy are unknown as sciences, but many operations in them are performed with a considerable degree of success. Sir J. Davis gives the detail of some experiments in the oxydizing of quicksilver, and preparation of mercurial medicines, which were performed by a native in the presence and at the request of Dr. Pearson at Canton, and "afforded a curious proof of similar results obtained by the most different and distant nations, possessing very unequal scientific attainments; and bore no unfavorable testimony to Chinese shrewdness and ingenuity in the existing state of their know. ledge."* The same opinion might be safely predicated of their metallurgic manipulations, though the same opportunity has not been afforded for scientific foreigners to examine them; and the character of the work thrown out is the only index of the efficacy of the process.

This compendious review of the science of the Chinese can be brought to a close by a brief account of their theory and practice of medicine and surgery. Although this people are almost as

*The Chinese, Vol. II., pp. 286, 266-70.

superstitious as the Hindus or North American Indians, they do not depend in case of sickness upon incantations and charms for relief, but resort to the prescriptions of the physician as the most reasonable and likely way to recover; mixed up, indeed, with many strange practices to assist the efficacy of the doses, such as pulling the skin of the neck till it is black and blue in order to haul out the evil spirit within. The dissection of the human body is never attempted, though some notions of its internal structure are taught in medical works. The opposite diagram of the internal arrangement of the viscera presents the popular opinions on this subject, for whatever foreigners may have imparted to them has not yet become generally known.

The Chinese seem to have no idea of the distinction between venous and arterial blood, nor between muscles and nerves, applying the word kin to both tendons and nerves. According to these physiologists, the brain (A) is the abode of the yin principle in its perfection, and at its base (B), where there is a reservoir of the marrow, communicates through the spine with the whole body. The larynx (C) goes through the lungs directly to the heart, expanding a little in its course, while the pharynx (D) passes over them to the stomach. The lungs (a, a, a, a, a) are white, and placed in the thorax; they consist of six lobes or leaves, suspended from the spine; four on one side and two on the other; sound proceeds from holes in them, and they rule the various parts of the body. The centre of the thorax (or pit of the stomach) is the seat of the breath; joy and delight emanate from it, and it cannot be injured without danger. The heart (b) lies underneath the lungs, and is the prince of the body; thoughts proceed from it. The pericardium (c) comes from and envelops the heart and extends to the kidneys. There are three tubes communicating from the heart to the spleen, liver, and kidneys, but no clear ideas are held as to their office. Like the pharynx, they pass through the diaphragm, which is itself connected with the spine, ribs, and bowels. The liver (n, n, n, n, n) is on the right side and has seven lobes; the soul resides in it, and schemes emanate from it; the gall-bladder (o) is below and projects upwards into it, and when the person is angry it ascends; courage dwells in it; hence the Chinese sometimes procure the gall-bladder of animals, as tigers and bears, and even of men, especially notorious bandits executed for their crimes, and eat