Tue learned Jesuit Gaubi!, who lived in Peking a ceutary ago, made extensive researches into Chinese astronomy. There is not any old Chinese book con. taining information on ancient eclipses, the zodiac, or the planets which he did not study; and his studies led him to entertain a strong belief in the presence of the Jews in China before the time of Christ, There were some things which he met with among the many subjects of curious inquiry to which he was drawn that could only be explained, og be thought, on the supposition that the Jews had had to do with them. In the Chou dynasty they had come by land to Chinn, 80 he conjretared, from, Buotria and the neighbouring countries, while many persons of other nations came also from those regions. From all of them the Chinese might obtain a knows ledge of astronomy and the events of antiquity in the western world, Ho thought much of the form of core tain characters, such as yin J " to offer wnorifices reverentially," The righto hand part of this charsoter be explains ne consisting of "west" above and "land" below, The left hand signifies or" look upon." The whole means "have your eyes fixed on the western lands," Bat unfortunately this explana tion will not bear inguiry. Lhe char acter is written phonetically, and the right-hand part taken by itself means "to raise a dike against floods." the good Father seems to have anticipated that objections would be raised to his ideas about this word, for ho addyj—Avy one may, if he wishes, expunge all I have said on this character so far it does not relate to astronomy, I have only made it the oconsiou of cov jeotures on what the Chinese might have learned aucionlly about astronomy frou Jews and others who came to China in the Chou dynnaty."
But the chief reason Gaubil had for believing that there were Jews in one cient China was a passage in the Taoiet wuther Huai-uau Irz, who wrote aboyb
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.