Extracted
from the Chinese Annals, London, 1871.
[2] Pinnula. The French pinnule is properly a sight-vane at the end of
a traversing bar. The transverse lines imply that minutes were read
by the system of our diagonal scales; and these I understand to have
been subdivided still further by aid of a divided edge attached to the
sight-vane; qu. a Vernier?
[3] Verbiest himself speaks of the displaced instruments thus ... "ut nova
instrumenta astronomica facienda mihi imponeret, quae scilicet more
Europaeo affabre facta, et in specula Astroptica Pekinensi collocata,
aeternam Imperii Tartarici memoriam apud posteritatem servarent,
prioribus instrumentis Sinicis rudioris Minervae, quae jam a
trecentis proxime annis speculam occupabant, inde amotis.
Imperator statim annuit illorum postulatis. et totius rei curam,
publico diplomate mihi imposuit. Ego itaque intra quadriennis spatium
sex diversi generis instrumenta confeci." This is from an account of
the Observatory written by Verbiest himself, and printed at Peking in
1668 (Liber Organicus Astronomiae Europaeae apud Sinas Restitutae,
etc.). My friend Mr. D. Hanbury made the extract from a copy of this
rare book in the London Institution Library. An enlarged edition was
published in Europe. (Dillingen, 1687.)
[4] On the contrary, he considered the photographs interesting, as showing
to how late a period the art of fine casting had endured.