Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1909-04-21
ANCIENT CHINESE LITERATURE.
How Records Were Kept-Books That
Were Cast From MoIds.


Asiatic Quarterly Review-It is now
absolutely certain that neither clay
leather, parchment nor the papyrus
was at any date ever used by the an
ing records, which fact alone goes
far to negative any prehistoric connec-
ton with Egypt, Babylonia or Persia,
touching which, moreover, there is not
the faintest specific evidence to be
found either in Eastern or Western
records.
1t seems also equally certain that
the Chinese never used metal style
to scratch characters upon wood, bam-
boo or palm leaves, as natives OF
India-for instance, Banyan bankers
may be seen doing any day, even now,
not only in India itself but also in
Singapore and perhaps Hong Kong.
What the Chinese used was stick
or style of bamboo, such as one or
two of the older historians describe
as being very like the Chinese joiners
''inkstick" or wooden stick and line
of the sixteenth century (when first
mentioned) and also like that of to-
day AS there were and are no bam-
ooos in Khoten the natives, and prob
ably also the Chinese of that place,
in initiating as best they could their
own bamboo slips and styles had per-
force to avail themselves of the tam
arisk, a tree which the Russian trav-
eller Pizewalski found thirty years
ago all over the Tarim Valley.
From the most ancient times ink
had been employed in China, chiefly
for the purpose of branding the fore
heads of criminals, but it had also
been used, concurrently with varnish,
for inscribing bamboo and wooden
tablets with written communications.
Presumably the ink was the same in
both cases.
For books nothing but bamboo
seems to have been used, except that
records of dynastic Importance and
state laws were also occasionally cast
from molds upon metal tripods in
order to secure permanency. AS the
bamboo stem is usually no thicker
than a brandy bottle, it follows that
the plane surface for writing charac-
tiers could never be very broad. ac-
cordingly we find that the most inn
portant works, such as the classics,
were written upon slips of pared bam-
boo about IL English feet long and
about one inch broad. Works OF
rather secondary Importance were in.
scribed on narrower strips of half the
length.
The number of ideographs on each
piece of bamboo varied with the i'm
portanee and dignity of the subject.
but N no case does it appear to have
exceeded thirty These bamboo laths
would therefore resemble our variously
graded modern lockwood paper knives,
and it may be reasonably supposed
that four of the smallest would anon.
go to the ounce-say. 100 words TO
the ounce. or from 1000 to 1000 to the
pound, according to the size of the
strips. Thus an average book of one
volume, as issued by modern Euro
pean publisher, would weigh the best
part of hundredweight.
Wind Gauge fer Railways.
In order to protect trains from risk
in crossing an exposed viaduct, wind
gauge is in use near Ulverson, Eng
land The apparatus is fixed at one
end of the viaduct, and has an actu-
ating part consisting of two boards,
kept in vertical position by springs.
the movements of which are shown on
a chart by means of the customary