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v « ry young man in accompanying Lord Amherst on the embassy to Pekin in 1816 . "—Introduction , p . 1 .
ihe work on ( Jlnna published in the Juhnburgh Cabinet Library is by Hugh Murray , F . R . S . E ., and is a compilation from works already published , which from their great length are unfit for popular reading ; such as the " General History " in thirteen quarto volumes ; the " Miscellaneous Memoirs "in sixteen ; the voluminous works of Mail la and other writers .
The portion of the book which treats of the foreign commerce of China and its relations with this country , is by Mr . Gordon , and Mr . Crawfurd , the author of the " History of the Indian Archipelago . " &c , and late Governor of Sincapore ;—that on navigation , is by Captain Lynn ; the chapter on mathematics and astronomy , by Professor Wallace of Edinburgh ; and that on botany , by Gilbert Burnett , Esq ., late Professor of Botany , King ' s College , London . The traditions of the Chinese , which carry their records back for tens of thousands of years we of course receive a » mythological fables . Mr . Davis pursues the claim of
authenticity no farther back than the history of that period so immediately preceding the time of Confucius , as to give him an undoubted power to ascertain its correctness , when he coinp iled its annals . This period cannot be extended beyond about 700 years before Christ . But the first dawn of authentic
history commences more than 2 , 000 years earlier , when the people lived in caverns , under the trees , or , according to sorne accounts , in the trees ; clothed in skins , and feeding on roots , nuts , fruits , and the raw flesh of animals caught in limiting . It was a great advance in society , and is particularly recorded * when they learned how to make huts of boughs , and when by accidental friction , as they cut down the trees , tliev discovered the element of fire .
Whatever may be the truth as to those early times , it is clear from these and other works on the subject , that the empire of China had reached a comparatively high point of civilization at a period when Europe was sunk in barbarism . There is evidence that various sciences and useful arts were known to the Chinese long before their supposed discovery or invention in European nations . The attractive power of the
loadstone was understood among them from remote antiquity , and we know that previous to A . D . 419 , ( but how long previous it is impossible to know , ) ships were steered by the magnet . The art of printing" was practised among them A . D . 950 , and paper had been invented nearly a thousand years before . The composition of gunpowder was no secret to them at an indefinitely early period , though it was not used in . war . Probably all parties were afraid of its effects on a large tcale .
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Htitorie * of Chi ** . 411
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1836, page 411, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2659/page/19/
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