looking-glafles ; but their common mirrors are o f poliihed metal,
which is apparently a compofition o f copper and zinc.
The pride, or the policy, o f the government afFciting to de-
fpife any thing new or foreign, and the general want o f encouragement
to new inventions, however ingenious, have been
greatly detrimental to the progrefs o f the arts and manufadtures.
T h e people difcover no want o f genius to conceive, nor o f dexterity
to execute ; and their imitative powers have always been
acknowledged to be very great. O f the truth of this remark
we had feveral inftances at Yucn-min-yuen. The complicated
glafs luftres, confiding o f feveral hundred pieces, were taken
down, piece by piece, in the courfe o f half an hour, by two
Chinefe, who had never feen any thing o f the kind before, and
were put up again by them with equal facility ; yet Mr. Parker
thought it neceflary for our mechanics to attend at his ware-
houfe feveral times to fee them taken down and again put together,
in order to be able to manage the bufinefs on their arrival
in China. A Chinefe undertook to cut a flip o f glafs from
a large curved piece, intended to cover the great dome o f the
planetarium, after our two artificers had broken three fimilar
pieces in attempting to cut them with the help o f the diamond.
The man performed it in private, nor could he be prevailed on to
fay in what manner he accompliihed it. Being a little jagged
along the margin, I fufpedt it was not cut but fractured, perhaps
by paffing a heated iron over a line drawn with water, or
fome other fluid. It is well known that a Chinefe in Canton,
on being ihewn an European watch, undertook, and fucceeded,
to make one like it, though he had never feen any thing o f the
kind
kind before, but it was neceflary to furniih him with a main
fpring, which he could not make: and they now fabricate ih
Canton, as well as in London, and at one third o f the expence,
all thofe ingenious pieces o f mechanifm which at one time were
lent to China in fuch vaft quantities from the repofitories o f
Goxe and Merlin. The mind o f a Chinefe is quick and appre-
henfive, and his fmall delicate hands are formed for the execution
o f neat work.
■ The man 11 failure o f filks has been eftabliihed in China at a
period fo remote, as not to be afcertained from, hiftory ; but the
time when the cotton plant was firfl: brought from the northern
parts o f India into the fouthern provinces o f China is known,
and noticed in their annals. That fpecies o f the cotton plant,
from which is produced the manufacture ufually called nankin
cotton, is faid to loofe its peculiar yellow tint in the courfe
o f two or three years when cultivated in the fouthern provinces*
owing,1 in all probability, to the great heat o f the weather and
continued funfhine. I have raifed this particular fpecies at the
Cape o f Good Hope where, upon the fame plant, as well as
On others produced from its feed, the pods were as full and
the tint o f as deep a yellow in the third year as; in the firfl:. As
is generally the cafe in moil o f their manufactures, thofe o f filk
and.cotton do not appear to have lately undergone progrefilve
improvement. The want o f proper encouragement from the
government, and the rigid adherence to ancient ufage, have
rendered indeed all their fabricks ftationary.
R R 2 O f