[1] Besides the works quoted in the text I have only been able to consult Gaubil’s notices, as abstracted in Lalande; and the Introductory Remarks to Mr. J. Williams’s Observations of Comets ... 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, quæ scilicet more Europæo affabre facta, et in specula Astroptica Pekinensi collocata, æternam Imperii Tartarici memoriam apud posteritatem servarent, prioribus instrumentis Sinicis rudioris Minervæ, quæ 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 Astronomiæ Europææ apud Sinas Restitutæ, 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.
[5] This ancient instrument is probably the same that is engraved in Pauthier’s Chine Ancienne under the title of “The Sphere of the Emperor Shun” (B.C. 2255!).
[6] After the death of Kúblái astronomy fell into neglect, and when Hongwu, the first Ming sovereign, took the throne (1368) the subject was almost forgotten. Nor was there any revival till the time of Ching. The latter was a prince who in 1573 associated himself with the astronomer Hing-yun-lu to reform the state of astronomy. (Gaubil.)
What Ricci has recorded (in Trigautius) of the dense ignorance of the Chinese literati in astronomical matters is entirely consistent with the preceding statements.
[7] I had entirely forgotten to look at Trigault till Mr. Wylie sent me the extract. The copy I use (De Christianâ Expeditione apud Sinas ... Auct. Nicolao Trigautio) is of Lugdun. 1616. The first edition was published at August. Vindelicorum (Augsburg) in 1615: the French, at Lyons, in 1616.
[8] “Pinnulis.”
[9] “Et stilus eo modo quo in horologiis ad perpendiculum collocatus.”