Tae prédont Dynasty has made greater efforts at Map-making thin any foraer one, and appears to have been the first to introduce into them lines of latitude and longitude. The old maps of Ohina were very vague and inaccurate, and they are not ancient in any sense. The map of the Empire spoken of in the Chou Li was not transmitted to poste. rity, nor do any of the Classics mi map except in this instance. Ssu-1 Ch'ien when compiling his History never judged it needful to illustrate it by maps. His commentators have thought differently, and we now find in recent editions of this work special maps, poorly done, of China in the successive periods of the Hela, the Shang and the Chou, His successor in wearing the mantle of the historic muse was Panka, but he, though he mentions a map of North-western Ohina, does not include it in his work. There were, than, maps in the Han dynasty which have not come down to us. The geographical works belonging to that time and the next few centuries contain no maps in any accessible editions. The first maps that have been retained in modern editions of ancient books are those of the Sung dynasty, snd they seem to be connected with the invention of print. ing, which dates from A.D, 982.
Tt was the influence of foreign countries which led the Chinese to enter somewhat vigorously on map-making in the Sung dynasty. The Buddhists began to compile works with maps of India and the countries through which the routes lay to India. In one of their larger works, historical anid biographical, the Fo-tsu-tung-chi, there is a map of China as it wad in the Sung
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.