fixty diftinft titles, making the complete cycle o f fixty years.
The nature o f this period may be rendered familiar to fuch as are
not converfant with the combination o f numbers, by affirming
the numerals from I to 10 for the ten roots, and the letters o f
the alphabet from a to m, for the twelve branches, and by
placing them in a circle, in the following manner, where the
cycle begins with the letter a,
IQ
9 8 ^
1 6 P-
$ 3 4 O' „ ^
* 0 2 f i i * ° ■
V \ &
^ ^0 «0 H 0} >H O' ^ H
A ^
* < i 9 * K <0 S O' I ° *o
^ 8 6
4 m 0 1 M
% $
f
Suppofing thefe letters and figures to be Chinefe characters, the
firft year o f any cycle would be called I a, the fecond lb , the
third 3c. an(i fo on to lo k , the tenth y e a r ; the eleventh would
be l l , the twelfth 2m, the thirteenth 3a, and the fixtieth
10«, when the whole revolution would be completed. This
cycle, though always ufed in the records o f their hiftory, never
appears in the date o f public ads. Thefe only fpecify the time
o f the reign under which they are given, as the I ft. 2d. or 3d.
day o f the ift. 2d. or 3d moon, o f the ift. 2d. or 3d. year o f the
reign o f fuch or fuch an Emperor.
Little progrefs as they appear to have made in the fcience o f
aftronomy, their knowledge o f geography, which fuppofes indeed
an acquaintance with the former, is equally limited. Their
own empire was confidered to occupy the middle fpace o f the
fquare furface o f the earth, the reft o f which was made up o f
iflands. When the Jefuits firft entered China, they found the
charts, even o f their own country, rude, and incorreit iketches,
without any feale or proportion, wherein a ridge o f mountains
covered a whole province, and a river fwept away half o f another;
- A t prefent they have neat and accurate maps o f the
country, copied after.the original furvey o f the whole empire,
undertaken and completed by the Jefuits, after feveral years o f
indefatigable labour.
Although the Chinefe language be unfavourable for nu-
mercial combinations it is admirably adapted for the concife
operations o f algebra, and the terfe demonftrations o f geometry,
to. neither o f which, however, has it ever been made fub-
fervient, both the one and the other being totally unknown in
the country. Their arithmetic is mechanical. T o find the
aggregate o f numbers, ¡a machine is in univerfal ufe, from the
man o f letters, to the meaneft fliopman behind his counter.
B y this machine, which is called a Swan-pan, arithmetical
operations are rendered palpable. It confifts o f a frame o f
i .W ood ,