Abstract
PALÆONTOLOGY is not a study that commends itself to the attention of Chinamen. With archæology the case is different. That is a pursuit which within historical limits the Chinese follow with enthusiasm. Every one who possesses any pretensions to culture, and who can afford to indulge the inclination, collects all that is old from cracked china to coins. So prevalent is this taste, and so keen is the competition for objects bearing the stamp of age, that a flourishing trade, such as rivals the celebrated traffic in “antiquities” carried on at Jerusalem, exists in fabricated antiques for the benefit of inexperienced native collectors and foreign purchasers. But natural antiquities are, speaking generally, left unnoticed, or if thought of for a moment are hastily explained by random conjectures. Topsy's celebrated explanation of her existence is about on a par with the guesses which are hazarded by the most learned Chinamen to account for palæontological phenomena. Science has always a borderland of unsolved questions, but in China this borderland exceeds in extent the territory of knowledge in the possession of the people. They have no aptitude for patæontolog, and few writers make any reference to it. Among the rare exceptions to this rule is Chen Kwah of the Sung Dynasty (A.D. 960-1127), who, in an-interesting work entitled “Notes from a Dreamy Valley,” has collected a number of facts on natural antiquities as well as on other matters. His knowledge is not deep, but when we remember that Voltaire accounted for the presence of marine shells on the top of the Alps by supposing that pilgrims in the Middle Ages had dropped them on their way to Rome, a great deal may be forgiven a Chinese writer of the eleventh century.
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DOUGLAS, R. Chinese Palæontology . Nature 29, 551–552 (1884). https://doi.org/10.1038/029551e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/029551e0