IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
CHAP. XLIII. THE PROVINCE OF SUKCIIUR
2I7
M. Sage exhibited incombustible paper made from this material, and had himself seen a small furnace of Chinese origin made from it. Madame Perpenté, an Italian lady, who experimented much with asbestos, found that from a crude mass of that substance threads could be elicited which were ten times the length of the mass itself, and were indeed sometimes several metres in length, the fibres seeming to be involved, like silk in a cocoon. Her process of preparation was much like that described by Marco. She succeeded in carding and reeling the material, made gloves and the like, as well as paper, from it, and sent to the Institute a work printed on such paper.
j~ The Rev. A. Williamson mentions asbestos as found in Shantung. The natives
bE use it for making stoves, crucibles, and so forth.
(Sir T. Browne, I. 293 ; Bongar s, I. 1104; Cahier et 'Martin, III. 271; Cardan, de Rer. Varietate, VII. 33 ; Alb. Mag Opera, 1551, II. 227, 233 ; Fr. Michel, Recherches, etc., II. 91; Gerv. of Tilbury, p. 13 ; N. et E. II. 493 ; D. des Tissus, II. I-12 ; J. iv: China Branch R.A.S. , December, 1867, p. 7o.) [Boger de Xivrey, Traditions teratologignes, 457-458, 460-463.--I1. C.]
r
~
~.
‘t
I
t: ON leaving the province of which I spoke before,' you
t` ride ten days between north-east and east, and in all that
way you find no human dwelling, or next to none, so
that there is nothing for our book to speak of.
At the end of those ten days you come to another
province called SUKCHUR, in which there are numerous
towns and villages. The chief city is called SUKCHU.2
The people are partly Christians and partly Idolaters,
and all are subject to the Great Kaan.
The great General Province to which all these three
provinces belong is called TANGUT.
Over all the mountains of this province rhubarb is
found in great abundance, and thither merchants come
to buy it, and carry it thence all over the world.
[Travellers, however, dare not visit those mountains
with any cattle but those of the country, for a certain
plant grows there which is so poisonous that cattle
which eat it lose their hoofs. The cattle. of the country
CHAPTER XLIII.
OF THE PROVINCE OF SUKCHUR.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.