This History
First Mentions The Name 'Persia' In A.D. 455 And The Existence There Of
This Metal, Which, A Little Later On, Is Also Said To Come From A State In
The Cashmeer Region.
K'ang-hi's seventeenth-century dictionary is more
explicit:
It states that Termed produces this ore, but that 'the true sort
comes from Persia, and looks like gold, but on being heated it turns
carnation, and not black.' As the Toba Emperors added 1000 new characters
to the Chinese stock, we may assume this one to have been invented, for the
specific purpose indicated.'" (E.H. PARKER, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan.,
1904, pp. 135-6.) Prof. Parker adds the following note, l.c., p. 149:
"Since writing the above, I have come across a passage in the 'History of
the Sung Dynasty' (chap. 490, p. 17) stating that an Arab junk-master
brought to Canton in A.D. 990, and sent on thence to the Chinese Emperor in
Ho Nan, 'one vitreous bottle of tutia.' The two words mean
'metropolis-father,' and are therefore without any signification, except as
a foreign word. According to Yule's notes (I., p. 126), tutia, or
dudha, in one of its forms was used as an eye-ointment or collyrium."
XXII., pp. 127-139. The Province of Tonocain "contains an immense plain on
which is found the ARBRE SOL, which we Christians call the Arbre Sec;
and I will tell you what it is like. It is a tall and thick tree, having
the bark on one side green and the other white; and it produces a rough
husk like that of a chestnut, but without anything in it. The wood is
yellow like box, and very strong, and there are no other trees near it nor
within a hundred miles of it, except on one side, where you find trees
within about ten miles distance."
In a paper published in the Journal of the R. As. Soc., Jan., 1909, Gen.
Houtum-Schindler comes to the conclusion, p. 157, that Marco Polo's tree
is not the "Sun Tree," but the Cypress of Zoroaster; "Marco Polo's arbre
sol and arbre seul stand for the Persian dirakht i sol, i.e. the
cypress-tree. If General Houtum Schindler had seen the third edition of
the Book of Ser Marco Polo, I., p. 113, he would have found that I read
his paper of the J.R.A.S., of January, 1898."
XXII., p. 132, l. 22. The only current coin is millstones.
Mr. T.B. CLARKE-THORNHILL wrote to me in 1906: "Though I can hardly
imagine that there can be any connection between the Caroline Islands and
the 'Amiral d'Outre l'Arbre Sec,' still it may interest you to know that
the currency of 'millstones' existed up to a short time ago, and may do so
still, in the island of Yap, in that group. It consisted of various-sized
discs of quartz from about 6 inches to nearly 3 feet in diameter, and from
1/2 an inch to 3 or 4 inches in thickness."
XXV., p. 146.
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