Hirth, Frederick

Ju-Kua, Chau

P., E. H.

Rockhill, W. W.

Scott, A. F.

Young, Keith

English

ZENODO

 Review: Early Chinese TradeAuthor(s): E. H. P.Review by: E. H. P.Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Apr., 1913), pp. 374-376Published by: geographicaljStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1778138Accessed: 21-06-2016 08:42 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available athttp://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusteddigital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information aboutJSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), Wiley arecollaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Geographical JournalThis content downloaded from 104.239.165.217 on Tue, 21 Jun 2016 08:42:53 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 374 REVIEWS. condition as a land of widespread and most amazing ruins. Too much cannot be said for the excellence of the illustrations either as photographs or maps, the geographical and ethnographical sections of the work being equally well illus- trated with the historical; but exception might be taken to the clumsy shape of the book which is in two volumes of the size adopted by the Indian Survey Department for special reports. T. H. H. Isostasy in India. ' Survey of India. Professional Paper, No. 13. Investigation of the Theory of Isostasy in India.' By Major H. L. Crosthwaite, r.b. Dehra Dun : 1912. In Professional Paper, No. 13, of the Survey of India, Major H. L. Crosth? waite discusses the theory of isostasy as applied to India in order to ascertain whether the condition of approximate equilibrium of the Earth's crust which has been termed isostasy exists in India. The investigation was made according to the method employed by Hayford and published by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1909, 1910, and 1912, and, following him, 113*7 kilometres is taken as the depth at which isostatic compensation is probably complete. The paper contains the topographic deflections in the meridian which were computed for 102 latitude stations, and for those in the prime vertical computed for 18 longitude stations; from these are deduced the differences between the deflections computed on the hypothesis of uniform isostatic compensation and the observed deflections applied to the Clarke-Bessel spheroid. These differences or residuals are much larger than those found by Hayford for the United States, so it would seem that the isostatic conditions in India are not yet attained, and it is suggested that in and near the Himalayan region the crust is still in a state of strain and has not yet reached equilibrium. The concluding statement that only results are presented in this paper, and their discussion is reserved for a future occasion, disarms criticism, but in a publication of this nature so brief a statement as we have here is not a little inconvenient to the reader, since he has to consult other works in order to gain a correct appre- ciation of the results which are set forth. Nothing is said of the degree of reliability of the residuals obtained, and probably this has been left for the future discussion, but the omission is inconvenient. The nine regions adopted are those in which the astronomical observations for latitude were arranged in vol. 13 of the Surveys, but a short description of each of them in the present paper would have relieved the reader of the necessity for referring to the other work. The result of imperfect compensation is briefly compared with that obtained in America, but a fuller summary of the conclusions reached in similar work in other parts of the Earth would have been a welcome addition. H. G. L. Early Chinese Trade. ' Chau Ju-Kua : his Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, entitled Chu-fan-chV Translated from the Chinese and annotated by Frederick Hirth and W. W. Rockhill. St. Petersburg : Printing Office of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. 1912. Prof. Hirth, of Columbia University, New York, in contributing his share to this valuable and interesting work, is no novice in the matter, but returns to a familiar subject asto an oldlove; he has been publishing articles and pamphlets, some in English, others in German, off and on at any time within the pastThis content downloaded from 104.239.165.217 on Tue, 21 Jun 2016 08:42:53 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms REVIEWS. 375 twenty years, and he has already told us in the main what he nowrecounts, with a little more embellishment and Indo-Arabic research, in the volume before us. As to Mr. Rockhill, he is, of course, widely known as one of the very few first - hand authorities upon Tibet and the Tibetans; but of late years he has also improved his opportunities at Peking in the field of Chinese oommercial litera- ture, and has thus given ample proof of his oapaoity as a "double-barrel" man. In this work upon Chau Ju-kua it is not easy to disoern the respeotive shares of two contributors, and the difficulty is occasionally intensified by the presence of an " I" which has inadvertently been overlooked in the proof-reading, when a " we " or an individual name in brackets would have been more consistent, On the whole, it may be assumed, however, that the bulk of the translation work and enthusiasm is Dr. Hirth's, and that the oaution, disorimination, and applica- tion of brake-power is more largely Mr. Rookhill's. The subject of the Chinese relations with the world by sea is an intensely interesting one, and it is curious to reflect that they knew muoh more, much sooner, about Indo-China, the South Seas, and India than they did about Lu- kiu, Formosa, the Pescadores, and even Japan. The reason is simple: they could hug the coast all the way to Singapore and Calcutta (or their ancient equivalents); and even from Sumatra to Ceylon they had the Nioobars, Anda- mans, and other miscellaneous islands to serve as marine milestones and points de repere. From first to last, almost down to our own times, they regarded the South sea, or Indian oeean as we call it, as being bounded by continuous land from Canton to Zanzibar; regarding the Red sea?if they ever clearly recognized it at all?as a mere creek or river-mouth on the north coast of the one and indivisible South sea. Japan, certainly, was known (more or less contemptu- ously) by land through Corea; but the sea trade with Japan, so far as it existed, seems to have been a private, if not secret, perquisite of the merchant class, and for 1200 years or so of little conoern to the successive Chinese governments. On the other hand, the vasty deep, with its dangerous currents and typhoons, made a complete mystery of Formosa up to the very time of the Dutch arrivals. Just as in High Asia the Chinese were first impelled west by a desire to form alliances against their arch-enemies the Huns (i.e. the early Turks), and by an itching curiosity to know more about Buddhism as derived through Turkistan from the Punjab and Afghanistan, so on the high seas they were impelled in the same westerly direction by a desire to check Indo-Chinese aggression on their southern frontier, to form alliances, create diversions, and to exchange sympathetic and literary views with the centres of Buddhism in India, Ceylon, and other places. It must be remembered that the Chinese were originally a northern power, and knew almost nothing of the country south of the River Yangtsze until the time when the First Emperor (b.c. 213) united feudal China under one centralized administration, taking possession of the Shan, Aimamese, and other kingdoms. Previous to that, it had for centuries been doubtful (as Confucius himself admits 300 years earlier) whether Old China would become Tartar or not: some parts of her were unmistakably Tartarized. There had certainly been a few excursions from and to the South seas, and from and to High Asia befora that unifying event, but practically China's eyes and ears were opened in both direotions at one and the same time, though she was muoh slower in developing her sea discoveries than those made by land?say three centuries slower. The subject is not a new one to the Royal Geographical Society, under whose auspices, it will be remembered, Colonel G. E. Gerini published, about four years ago, a valuable monograph of nearly one thousand pages, entitledThis content downloaded from 104.239.165.217 on Tue, 21 Jun 2016 08:42:53 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 376 REVIEWS. 'Researches on Ptolemy's Geography of Eastern Asia.5 He really treats of much the same subject that Messrs. Hirth and Rockhill discuss, and these two gentlemen, of course, give due credit to his industry, if they are not often able to aco. ut his sanguine and even startling conolusions. The fact is, the whole sub? ject is stl1! in its infancy, and it is not desirable to labour it with too much talk. Periods must not be mixed, and there must be more disorimination in gathering evidence, in the admitting and weighing of evidence, and in argument upon the evidence. The subject will never be made plain to the man in the street until we start fair from the beginning, both from the Phcenician or Roman side, and from the Chinese or Indian side, The present writer's speciality is, of course, China, and not Arabia or India. Take, therefore, the Chinese side as an illustration. We want secular maps, rather than subtle arguments an 1 forced comparisons of sound. We want, first of all, a map showing what China knew of the South seas previous to a.d. 1. Then we want a map for each dynasty subsequent to that, showing the conquests and advances of the cessions and divisions made; the names and extents of each country (shaded to show their chief productions); the changes in the names and areas of the states; the extent to which Hindu and (later) Arab influence was wholly or partly supreme; the distances between ports; the names of rulers; with the winds, tides, promontories, and so on. When we have got all this (and not before), we want similar Arab, Roman, Indian, Singhalese, Burmese, and Siamese maps, either native, or made up from native chronicles, exclusively from each separate country's point of view. dealing with ascertained facts, and not speculation. When we have these maps in front of us, we have nine-tenths of the evidence plump and clear before our eyes: then, and then only, will it be time to compare full notes and to split hairs, At present things are in a hopeless jumble, similar to the condition of Turkish history until, some twenty years ago, bilingual Turko-Chinese monuments were found in situ, enabling us to clear up practically the whole subject. Messrs, Hirth and Rockhill have now done excellent pioneer work in this direction; but two centuries are not enough: we must begin from the beginning, and exhaust all that each period can tell us alone. _____ E. H. P, * Scinde in the Forties : being the Journal and Letters of Colonel Keith Young, c.b.' Edited by A. F. Scott. (London: Constable & Co. 1912, Pp.xvi., 201. Map and Illustrations. 12s. 6d. net.) A slight but interesting record of adminis? trative life in Scinde after its conquest by Sir Charles Napier. Colonel Young arrived in India shortly after the decisive battle of Miani, 1842?that victory which was announced by Sir Charles in the historic punning despatch, "peccavi." For ten years he worked unsparingly for the pacification of the new province, first under its conqueror and then under Sir Bartle Frere. ' Die Kolonisation Sibiriens.' Eine Denkschriftvon P. A. Stolypin und A, W, Kriwoschein. Einzige berechtigte Uebersetsung von Carl Erich Gleye. (Berlin: Hermann Paetel. 1912. 5 m.) During the first three centuries of the Russian occupation of Siberia four and a half million Russian immigrants settled in the country, while in the last fif teen years three millions more entered, half of these in the years 1907 to 1909. In the year 1910 there was a considerable reduction in the number, partly because the crops failed in Siberia while there was a good harvest in European Russia. There is no doubt, however, that the state organization has not been able to cope with the great flood of immigration, and this book deals with the transport of immigrants and their settlement on the land, laws relating to the acquisition of farms, loans, ete.This content downloaded from 104.239.165.217 on Tue, 21 Jun 2016 08:42:53 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Early Chinese Trade

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Early Chinese Trade

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