["The Calendars for the use of the people, published by Imperial command,
are of two kinds. The first, Wan-nien-shu, the Calendar of Ten Thousand
Years, is an abridgment of the Calendar, comprising 397 years, viz. from
1624 to 2020. The second and more complete Calendar is the Annual
Calendar, which, under the preceding dynasties, was named Li-je, Order
of Days, and is now called Shih-hsien-shu, Book of Constant Conformity
(with the Heavens). This name was given by the Emperor Shun-chih, in
the first year of his reign (1644), on being presented by Father John
Schall (Tang Jo-wang) with a new Calendar, calculated on the principles
of European science. This Annual Calendar gives the following
indications: (1 deg.) The cyclical signs of the current year, of the months,
and of all the days; (2 deg.) the long and short months, as well as the
intercalary month, as the case maybe; (3 deg.) the designation of each day
by the 5 elements, the 28 constellations, and the 12 happy presages;
(4 deg.) the day and hour of the new moon, of the full moon, and of the two
dichotomies, Shang-hsien and Hsia-hsien; (5 deg.) the day and hour for the
positions of the sun in the 24 zodiacal signs, calculated for the
various capitals of China as well as for Manchuria, Mongolia, and the
tributary Kingdoms; (6 deg.) the hour of sunrise and sunset and the length of
day and night for the principal days of the month in the several capitals;
(7 deg.) various superstitious indications purporting to point out what days
and hours are auspicious or not for such or such affairs in different
places. Those superstitious indications are stated to have been introduced
into the Calendar under the Yuean dynasty." (P. Hoang, Chinese
Calendar, pp. 2-3.) - H. C.]
We may note that in Polo's time one of the principal officers of the
Mathematical Board was Gaisue, a native of Folin or the Byzantine
Empire, who was also in charge of the medical department of the Court.
Regarding the Observatory, see note at p. 378, supra.
And I am indebted yet again to the generous zeal of Mr. Wylie of Shanghai,
for the principal notes and extracts which will, I trust, satisfy others
as well as myself that the instruments in the garden of the Observatory
belong to the period of Marco Polo's residence in China.[1]
The objections to the alleged age of these instruments were entirely based
on an inspection of photographs. The opinion was given very strongly that
no instrument of the kind, so perfect in theory and in execution, could
have been even imagined in those days, and that nothing of such scientific
quality could have been made except by the Jesuits. In fact it was
asserted or implied that these instruments must have been made about the
year 1700, and were therefore not earlier in age than those which stand on
the terraced roof of the Observatory, and are well known to most of us
from the representation in Duhalde and in many popular works.
The only authority that I could lay hand on was Lecomte, and what he says
was not conclusive. I extract the most pertinent passages:
"It was on the terrace of the tower that the Chinese astronomers had set
their instruments, and though few in number they occupied the whole area.
But Father Verbiest, the Director of the Observatory, considering them
useless for astronomical observation, persuaded the Emperor to let them be
removed, to make way for several instruments of his own construction. The
instruments set aside by the European astronomers are still in a hall
adjoining the tower, buried in dust and oblivion; and we saw them only
through a grated window. They appeared to us to be very large and well
cast, in form approaching our astronomical circles; that is all that we
could make out. There was, however, thrown into a back yard by itself, a
celestial globe of bronze, of about 3 feet in diameter. Of this we were
able to take a nearer view. Its form was somewhat oval; the divisions by
no means exact, and the whole work coarse enough.
"Besides this in a lower hall they had established a gnomon.... This
observatory, not worthy of much consideration for its ancient instruments,
much less for its situation, its form, or its construction, is now
enriched by several bronze instruments which Father Verbiest has placed
there. These are large, well cast, adorned in every case with figures of
dragons," etc. He then proceeds to describe them:
"(1). Armillary Zodiacal Sphere of 6 feet diameter. This sphere reposes on
the heads of four dragons, the bodies of which after various convolutions
come to rest upon the extremities of two brazen beams forming a cross, and
thus bear the entire weight of the instrument. These dragons ... are
represented according to the notion the Chinese form of them, enveloped in
clouds, covered above the horns with long hair, with a tufted beard on the
lower jaw, flaming eyes, long sharp teeth, the gaping throat ever vomiting
a torrent of fire. Four lion-cubs of the same material bear the ends of
the cross beams, and the heads of these are raised or depressed by means
of attached screws, according to what is required. The circles are divided
on both exterior and interior surface into 360 degrees; each degree into
60 minutes by transverse lines, and the minutes into sections of 10
seconds each by the sight-edge[2] applied to them."
Of Verbiest's other instruments we need give only the names: (2)
Equinoxial Sphere, 6 feet diameter. (3) Azimuthal Horizon, same diam. (4)
Great Quadrant, of 6 feet radius. (5) Sextant of about 8 feet radius. (6)
Celestial Globe of 6 feet diameter.
As Lecomte gives no details of the old instruments which he saw through a
grating, and as the description of this zodiacal sphere (No.