The encyclopaedia sinica / by Samuel Couling.

  • Samuel Couling
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The encyclopaedia sinica / by Samuel Couling. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    597/648 page 587
    3E Ut Wang Feng-su, his old name, he went to iviangcnou ££ ^]‘| in Shansi, where he had remark¬ able success and baptized 200 people in the first year, including 60 literati and some members of the imperial family. After incessant labours he died in Kiangchou in 1640, leaving eight thousand Christians in the province instead of the twenty- five found at his arrival. Havret : La Stele chretienne de Si-ngan-fou, ii, p. 24,- note. VALIGNANI, ALEXANDRE, ?£ Fan Li-an, was born in Italy in 1538 and entered the Society of Jesus in 1566. He visited India, then Macao, and passed to Japan, where he had great success. He died at Macao just as he was preparing to enter China, in 1606. Semedo relates his cry as he looked towards China,—“0 rock ! rock ! when wilt thou open? ” He is said to have put things in train for the later settlement of Jesuits in the Courts of Nanking and Peking, and to have been the inspirer of Ricci’s labours. Havret : Za Stele chretienne de Si-ngan-fou, ii, p. 5, note. VARIETES SIN0L0GIQUES, a valuable series of works by Jesuit missionaries, issued at Zikawei. As a whole it has a great reputation for scholarship and accuracy. The first work was published in 1892 and 47 volumes have been issued up to the present date. These include 7 works on geography, viz., on the island of Ts'ung-ming, the Grand Canal, Anhui Province, a work historical and geographical on Nanking, a plan of- Nanking, with maps of the Prefectures of China and of W. SsuelTuan. There are works on history, the Kingdoms of Wu, Ch‘u, Ch‘in, Chin, Han, Wei and Chao. In archaeology, etc., there are three volumes on. the Nestorian Tablet, one on the Stone Circles of Hsu-chou fu, one on the tombs of the Liang dynasty and one on Jewish Inscriptions at IGai-feng fu. There is a Chronology comparing Chinese and Christian dates for 4,000 years, volumes on Literary Allusions, on Examinations, civil and military, on Etiquette, on Marriage, on Property, on the Salt monopoly, on the Administration ; a translation of Chang Chih-tung’s Ch‘iian Hsiich P‘ien, a Treatise on Chu Hsi, ten volumes of researches in Chinese Superstitions, and other works. These being by many different writers vary in value, and some are out of date; but the whole series is extremely useful. They are all in French, but the last-named work, Dore on Superstitions, is also appearing in English, and Richard’s Geography of China also has an English translation. VARNISH, CHINESE. ^ ch‘i, is the sap of Bhus vernicifera, a tree whose principal habitat is in Kueichou and SsuchTian. It grows in other provinces, such as Chekiang, but in no great abundance. Its altitudinal range is from 3,000 to 7,500 feet, the optimum being 4,000 to 5,000 feet. The port of Ningpo was one of the first ports opened to foreign trade, and probably foreigners first came into contact with the varnish there, and called it “Ningpo” varnish, a name which it still bears in the trade. It is largely used in lacquer work and nearly all the foreign export goes to Japan. Hankow is the chief market for the supply, followed by Ichang and Yochow; other ports supply very little. The annual interport exportation averages 26,000 piculs, of which half goes abroad. Hosie states (B.e-port on Ssuch‘uan, p. 29) that the sap is obtained from incisions in the bark of the tree, which are made first when the tree is seven years old, and not again for seven years. The sap, which on issuing from the tree is of a greyish white colour, must not be exposed to the air, which hastens its inherent tendency to become black. A layer of paper is placed over the vessels containing it to ensure this. Adulteration is detected by the smell, and by the fact that pure varnish if held up and made to drop, will remain in an unbroken string, but the string will break if the varnish has been mixed with oil. If adulterated with oil, varnish placed on paper will “run,” the paper absorbing the oil. A peculiarity of “Ningpo varnish” is that it hardens only in a moist atmosphere and remains in a tacky condition if exposed to sunlight and heat, the essentials in hardening copal varnish. It should therefore only be applied during cloudy weather when the atmosphere is surcharged with moisture. For indoor work its drying is facilitated by hanging about the room cloths saturated in water. The only change which takes place in the composition of the lacquer in drying at ordinary temperatures is the slow absorption of oxygen, which is attributed to an obscure chemical reaction depending on the presence of a compound of manganese with a proteid-like substance. Red varnish is obtained by the admixture in certain proportions of wood oil and cinnabar; yellow, by the admixture of wood oil and powdered orpiment. The export in 1916 was pels. 15,619, value Tis. 788,658. VARO, FRANCISCO, a Dominican missionary who reached China in 1654. He was the author of the first Grammar of Chinese printed in China; it was printed at Canton in 1703, the title being Arte de la Lengva mandarina. The work is extremely rare. Fottrmont’s Grammatica Duplex was, according to Remusat, merely a Latin trans¬ lation of Varo’s grammar. VASILIEV, VASILI PAVLOVITCH , was born in 1818, and died in Petrograd in 1900.
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