Chinese Science, 1978, 3: 27-38. : 7 The Transcendent Vitemin: Efflorescence of Lang-kan Edward H. SCHAFER The enigmatic word lang-kan 2 14 hes attracted the attention of a few scholars, but its “recise connotation has never been determined. The earliest texts in which it occurs, texts of the Jute Chou and the Hun periods, give us fa better ides of the world of tung-kun than of the identity of luny-kan. ‘the word represents a gomstone--but it is @ ghostly geustane, shrouded in fog, even when in the company of the most resplendent jewels, of golden towers reflecting the light of Heaven, and of divine beings gloriously costumed in damask and brocade. It is eusy to assume that since the word normally appears in super mundane environments it never had a definite mineralogical referent. But the assumption is not @ necessury one. The worlds of faery are built out of the fragments, often decayed, of the world we know. Men have adorned thelr paradises with names that are meaningful to them: the walls of the Heavenly City were decorated with real chalcedony and undoubted chrysoprase. It is we, the latter- day descendants of these men--the decoders of their relics--who must discover the true gews within the gangue accumluted by the passage of time and Tinguis- tic change. Chernités way be a mystery to us, but it did not conceal its identity from Theophrastus. (Fortunately we have discovered that topaaton and sapphirva were not “topaz” and "sapphire" to the ancients, but peridot end lapis lazuli. Semantic history is not alwuys @ vain pursuit.) “Blue [or green) (oh*ing ff ) Tang-kan" appears anong the mineral drugs of the [Shon nung] pen ta'ao ching AP PAH SH. thought to be a work of the later Han period. } -This is ane of the rare early references to the mineral which treats it as @ reul substance. Most otlers make it a Feuture of the divine world. The Shan hat ching Jy 2% &H , for instance, tells of “Lang-kan trees" in shadowy, haunted, western burderlands of Tytao Hung-ching edited the attributed to that book ef " Shen Nung pharmacopoeia. uth cencury, only the name with their rank in @ th fold hierarchy, cen igned witl tathe anctent book, T’at p'ing pi tank 42P & (Culacch" Log 1818), 809: 1b, quotes this ppseuge, adding thar the mineral in also called ded} wand" (ohn kuet gE). which suggests « kind of syabolic tree. Dr. SCHAFER is Agassiz Professor of Oriental Languages and Literature, University of California, Berkeley.28 China.? Indeed, Lang-kan trees are closely associated with the cult of Hsi wang Ms & HZ. -B and with Ktun-lun , her cosmic mountain, ‘The trees have also been placed on Pteng-lai 44 i the counterpart of K'un-lun in the eastern ocean.? However, the so-called "weet" books (vet ahu A %) of Han, which abound in statements about the phenanenal effects of astral emanations, describe a species of Llang-kan devoid of all specific geographical associa- tions: "Wien the divine numina proliferate, 2ung-kan phosphoresces.""* fut the documentation for the Jang-kan tree of K'un-lun is the most abundant.” As a tree of the western paradise its lustrous verdure penneates the imagina- tive literature of the post-Han period, in which the rubineous sheen of its fruits is virtually eclipsed by its blue-green foliage, wiose color the 2an wai net hei ching 2M 9.6 kt and Ta huang hoi ching AK @ kk. Kuo Prue PPsL glosses on theac passages makes che first tree ved, the wecond vhice. In the cond case he haw textual support, but in nelther ie it made very clear whether he referw to the body of the tree, or to ite gemlike fruic, or both. lt appears that it tu chiefly Kuo's scholia that have created the confusion about the mineralogical identity of 2ang-kan. Modern scholaru have supposed that, in view of the diversity of colors attributed to it, the name stood for a number of dissimilar materials. For instance, H. T. Ch Shih ya 7 Ah (Lapidariun Sinioun, Memoirs of the Geological Survey of China, Ser. B, No. 2 Peking, 1921), p- 24, proposes the identity of red spinel ("balas ruby") from the famous aines at Badakhuhan. 1 myself, in Tu hun'a Stone Catalogue of Cloudy Forvet, A Commentary arid Synopaia (erkeley, 1961), p. 95, proposed preclous ted Coral from the Mediterranean. Too longer wey u need for euch an {dent Hicutton. Awong the supposed examples of “red Lang-kan tw the expres~ fion tan Ring Lb an Hout caus Tite phrose oppeoce later to; tle hone af the Gupernal reuidyupe of the Incomparable Locd of the Golden fylons (Chin che 'nah gheny chun ‘¢ B }, one of the wot exalted of the uharg chtingy 2 deities, viowe home 1y the Bawtlica of Cinnubar dan (Yan kan cien RAPRR )- See Tung chen ching-f) PAS, quoted ta Mi ohany pt yao S Lay YP (uo teang, 770), 22: 2a. Although tan kan could be (ucerpreted ay “clunabar (1.e.5 verailion) [ang-] Han," te could also be taken ay an ordinary rhyming binom, with graphs arbitrarily chosen to represent the dy, The forwer interpreta tion scems preferable in view of the occurrence terms os chu kan th ET, “peuded kan," on Mount Pleng-lat in the eastern Lich tau, "T'ang wen," and pt kan A Rf “eyan kan" tn Sung ohih (Ataiaming ed.), 488% 57140. Kan can reasonably be tuken as @ monosyllabic substitute for dang-kan (nv these acer t~ bute-head constructions; compare hung p'o kL "pink amber," dn which p'o reprevence hin-p/odf,PO"anber." Bue this ds about the extent of the evidence for a red variety of larg-kan, restricted ta the realm of ancient faery. Ise che Livh taugil 4 passage just ceferred co. This text 4 much later than aany vhich assuctate the lang-Aan tree with K'un-lun and the far west generally. Syeiao ching ehou ehun ch'i A6G A 49 B | quoced in Pai pling yR Lan, B09: la, "Phosphoresces Cranvlat ching # . Scrassical vources, other than chowe wentioned, include Erh ya, Kuan tau, and Huai nan (au "Tt hsing.” Lang-kan ts regularly associated wich that other yew of fuery (to take a retruspective view of Its ¢ ronment), Lin-ch Second wyllable appears eo be cognate to ch‘iudk "ball"; In shore, another beadilke gem, tur a review of these passages, wee Chang, loa. cit.Schafer 29 fruits acquired--to became lovely green pearis.° Despite these elfin affinities, the belief persisted that there was an ‘actual mineral, born within mundane rocks, to which the name Lang-kan could reasonably be applied. The earliest such record 1s in the ‘Tribute of Yu" section of the Shu ohing % &i@ . There lang-kan is Listed, slong with the equally mysterious tin-oh'ivEMh 2% among the products of Yung-chou any, a region carresponding approximately to modem Shensi. The 14 kung & is a rather matter-of-fact inventory of economic resources--especially of ancient Iwury goods--and not given to fantasy. Probably, then, Jang-kan was a genuine product of the Western Chou heartland in ancient times. For the Later Han period we have the laconic assertion of Shuo ven Wty X that lang- kan--Like so many other precious minerals--is "a stone inferior to jade. However, no source of supply is mentioned. A little later, we have the cesti- ony of Wet tush $E.& enoe “Me country of Great Gh'in & produces Lang. kan." Here we have a source but no description, and even the name of the source does not help us mich. "Great Ch'in," often identified with the East- ern Roaan Empire, was at this time as much @ fairyland to the Chinese as Wak-wak is to us. With T'ao Hung-ching Ag) Gh FH, in Liang times, we are in sanovhat better cose: he notes # traditional association of lang-kan with Szechwan. Su Ching Bk XK, the T'ang pharucologist, reports that the gen- stone comes from anong the Black and White Man SH tribes ‘west of Sui-chou WAN) “on the Yunnan border of Szechwan. Here the reference is to the aboriginal peoples of Yyy and Kweichaw who were, in T'ang times, know. collectively as Ts'uan Finally, the mineral was imported from distant Whoten and also from Indie. 8 But clearly Yunnan was @ prime source of lang-kan in the Tung period. During this Han-T'ang interval the evidence points clearly to the use of lang-kan as a gen, and a valuable goa at that. Chang Heng Sk (3G tells of rly inatances are Wang Yen-shou SE F (ca. 126-ca, 148), Lu Ling kuang tien 4 3L BORA; (Ch'tan Hou Han von, in Ch'tan shang ku gan tat Chitin Yay ean 1965 ed.), 5 Kh. Chao hata fu §H fat urvives, ia Tlai pting yu lan, 1b); Wang Chia x ih ¢ chi 48 iY ta(T'ai pling yu lan, 809: 1b). It must be d that in thes viv irom the wecond to the fourth centuries BCA11 tends to preveil over leafiness; but « trend, co be fulfilled a, bee set in. 6 fu keno [tu ohtao ven (only one ver (ach cent.) acknowl, gemaine io the Tt 2a; Lu chien Tquoted in Plat ping yu tan, 809: la. CE. H. T. Chang, op. oit., 27-28. found {n Su Ching aghat, 1959), 5: 66-67. That with 8rhe associations of Lang-kan with Szechwan and khotan 3} at § Gi » 22la: 13b, ‘QM, Nein heiu pon te'ao A % A- Todia is from T'ang ahu (Seu pu pei yuo e30 the entertainnents of the Han nobility at which guests were regaled with the sight, and perhaps the gift, of dishes overflowing with the stuff, as if with the fruits of paradise, along with certainly edible dainties--a veritable scene fram “Aladdin.” The pot Ts'ue Chih & df (A.W. 192-232) bung Shadey- on blue" (te "ui a ) Tang-kan from the waist of lis ine beautiful person. chin vu BY 5 in its monographic report on economic affairs, associates fang hen ith yuk-Caid permants and pluwwigery as a rich commodity of the Fitth century Chiang Yen 22 24, uds 12 with gems vf fang-hun, "Plainly, during this period, funy-kun was used Shensi region. dn U da guldess Primarily in jewelry, both veul and literary. This has be “regl" Lany-kan dow to Trang times. Bat before attempting 1a fair sampling of the evidence for the cultural role of n identi ficut ion of the substance it 1s first necessary to conswler the continued and cein- forced use of its name to refer to divine fruits on heavenly trees during the post-llan era. The example of Ghang Heng had consecrated the metaphor of lucullan Fruits as concretions of lung-kun, and later poets did not hesitate to exploit the image. So Juan Chi Bua (210-263) gives us a poem called “pining at Swirise on Lang-kan Fruit." Mulf a millenium later Li Po $- inforws us that 4 famished phoenix, still conscious of its worth and dignity, Wi1L nor deign to peck at millet as camon fowl do, but Like a Taoist adept, 1 will scorn all but a dict of fung-kun. Were we can detect a new facet on the poetic gem--a transition from glittering fruit of distant Ktun-lun, to aristocratic fure in golden bowls, to (in the end) an elixir of mnortadity. It was predictable that the association between Luny-kun and the beauties of an idevlized natural world would overslow into (Literally) colorful (non-bitera)) metaphors. These tended to fal) into two classes Senang Heng, Man cu fu AP RAC Kuo-haweh vhi-pen tetung-shu ed. of Wen hguan), 4:77. Eleeshere, Chang Heng hus lany-kun and gold as the glfes of @ eavilful pexwon." See his "Sou ch'ou shih," In ibid., 29: 639. The former text has chen hatu lang-kan 4) B® URI, suggesting the juxtupositien, and possible identity, of Jewels and sveetaeut 2Orstao chin, “Het al ptien" Ade J An To'ao Ta-uhien chi (seu pw te ung kfan ed.), 6:5a. UM iin ah (Klai-ming edu), 26: 11538. ovtang Yen, “Shut shang shen n¥ fq," Chiang Gi-Ling hi (in Han Kei Lin ehtao yo san-vhia oh, 1960 edo), 1: Tob. Byun Chi, "Yang huat," nv. 43, to Juan Pueping yung hui ehih chu (1957 ed.), p-55, ry po, Ku feng." au. 60, Ch'Men Plaig ahi, tan 4, tate 4, be Bb,Schafer uM imagos of crystulline splendor exemplified in forms of water and ice, al, even more inportantly, images of vegetative glory. In the case of water, there was the wil-established precedent of pif , another mineral word often applied to divine-sueming waters, This usage was ultimately derived from descriptions of the divine pools at Mouit K*un: Jun. As u color word, pi Came to be ussociated equally with deep shades of Breen, us in dark, glossy veyetutin, and of dark blue, whether that uf deey cold water, or of the chilly depths of the sky. The word conmoted, i short, Lies of ch'ing, On the blue side, celestial af particularly abundant, as in such phrases as pi k'ung B'S, pi hou BR , pi to "$i%, and pi ton YiR. The last of these referred, not to the Jun River on earth, but to its counterpart in the sky. In these heavenly contexts I have found it convenient to translate pi by "cyan." Hence our “Milky Way" is "The Ian in the Cyan {bepths)"--dark, remote, crystalline and cold, This is the ultimate imaye of the most pure and the most divine of waters, We see comparable usage, transferred to Lang-kar!, in Pan Chao's HL @4 poem on "The Arrival of Winter": ‘The long Ho forms {crystalline) laug-kan: Layered ice is like banked-up jade/> Here the "Yellow! River is represented as truly wundane, close to the primor- dial, frozen, icy blue of quartz--that is, of "germinal essence of water" {uhui hing AAW). But by T'ang times the dowinant image conveyed by lang-kan was that of klossy herbiage--above all of the gemy luster of plants und trees consecrated by tradition to the gods, or forming part of the environment of ly inspired men and women. So Tu Fu Ad iff found the word lung-kan appropriate to the vegetation around the altar at the forest hawe of a holy Taoist, !© and to the turf which provided splendid matting for guests at a royal picnic near 4 mysterious grotto, an avenue to the underworld. '? In the charming neighbor- hood of 4 woodland temple, with quicksilver elixirs fuming under the trees, bamboos of lang-kan lean over che paths.'* 4 beautiful garden, un image of intense var ities are "pao choo, “Tung chih," Puc Tatan-chin chi, ta van Wei Liw chav po van whi chi, 2, 5b. "Sry Pu, “Meuan tw t'an ke Tr hate Tay Fu, “cheng fu as che yen tung chung, 9:50. fcntuan te-yu AN 4%, han 3, este Hy Ms dal Yuan § jen," Ch'tan Tang ohih, hin 4. tte ty Ch'tan Plana vhih, han 4, eure 2, Wan chfu yo... Hao etten kun," Chuan Dany ahih,3 paradise, displays shrubs of jointed tang-kun!? Bamboo was always the most typical representative of lang-kan in the plant world. Its color had been stereotyped as halcyon," itself an aubiguous word: it was orgunic turquoise, neither blue nor green.?° Seill, amid all of this banbusoid grecnery, the wincial glints of sky and water were never Corgottent Piled sncws cone to melting--torrents! water broaden The luminous woon, filling this high loft, is shute ey nd Lang kun. In Tung times uncertainty gave way to cer inty: the nysterious blue- green geu-trees did in fact exist, and in the donain of T'ang itself, Indeed they could be hauled up in nets out of the shallow waters off Ch'ang-kwo [@} tomship in Ming ®Q county, in modern Uhokiang. In short, as wus inevit- able, the divine lay-kan tree was finally recognized in w Kind of mineralized subaqueous shrub--a species of branching coral, colored either blue or greenZ2 This new development in the nutural history of tang-kan creates @ certain problem. What Kind of coral was it? It mist have been a variety attractive enough to find acceptance in the imaginations of persons brought up on the shining myths of K'un-lun, Perhaps it is no longer identifiable. One known kind of coral is at least worthy of serious consideration, ‘This is the blue coral Heliopora coerula--a very suitable nane for the divine tree of Ilsi Wang Mi, It is @ branching coral, the only Living species of its genus, reported to grow in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, In former times specimens from Africa, presumably taken from the Iudian Ocean, played sume minor part in the gum trale. 1 have seen a single report for recent times, yuiblished in 1975: ‘thas is a culearcous type. It had a peculiar structure with quite a number of large holes with a very conspicuous structure, plus a myriad of tiny imlenta- ions in the surface. Despite the indentations, the averall stone took a rather high polish."?/ Whether this is the sume species of coral that was 19 iy yous P41 @4%, Ho Lo-e len hylen yuan lu shung," Chuan Puny olin, han 6, cute 3, 93 9a 24 tn LE snen 4 BP (7-640), 4 a, % dag vin & (iL. 873), ai 1b, A hag ebay” Chia Tha han 8, twle Chu," Ch'in Phy ahh, haw 1), tste dy Fr Stu1 Tao-yung Bt ab HL (1. 879), “chta yen," Ch'nun Pang ohh, han 11, e8te 1, Lr 6b. The anomalous appearance of “lang-kan paper" 1n a supernatural tale of the ninth century suggests, despite the ghostly atmosphere congenial to minerals frou another world, that lang-kan hud become merely anocher color word, Ike pi and ue-ve & (for vileh see E. H. Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samurkuid, Berkeley, 1963, pp. 230-231 and especdutly p. 333) before ity and Teter Engitsh “azure (voriler the mane of the mineral Lapis lazuli). See Tuan Cheng-ehih PL AL CY, yu yang toa cou BPE IWFB, hsuhf (We 'ung ohu chi ch'eng edo), 2: 183. : 22.6 expecially Chien Tetangceh’t PRB B), pen evtao onin AES UE , quated in Fen tutus kung om AH tu EL Giiong Kong, 1972), 8: 40. Sve a the cooments of HL Shiltechen ga ty tn ibid; Wet. Chany, cht yay py Setter, ie Kun!y Shome Cotalugus, pp. 94-95 AM ard Po tiddtoat, fee, “Developments sud Wighbigits at GIA'6 bab in Los Angebeest osc ed Dog. Winer, 192479), EE iby.Schafer 3B fished up along the China coast in T'ang and Sung times can only be a matter for conjecture, But even during the T'ang period, when the purity of the Zang-kan lincage was contuminated, as it were, by salt water, there was some feeling that the trua mineral was not dredged up fron the depths of the sea. low could one account otherwise for reports of glassy lang-kan? thoy should one explain the officially uuthenticated tang-kan beads--gews in the true clussical tradi a treasures, found in Kiangsu, in honor of tion--which were among the t Which the new era Pao ying [Bp “Treasure Response" was proclained in A.D. 7627 What could one make of the persistent reports of Lang-kan in the mount- ains of the west--apparently confirmed in Sung times by the gift of a ainia- ture mountain of “cyan kan (pi kan € Af )" to the Chinese court by the Kingdom of Ta-1i A.B in Yunnan--a traditional source of the gemstone?” None of these examples were coralline. For this lang-kan of the mountains, such green gemstones as denantoid gamet (known from the serpentine of the Urals), green tourmaline (as that of Ceylon), apple-green chrysoprase, or even light greenish-blue turquoise from the famous deposits near Nishapur, are all conceivable identities. Or perhaps the name was given to several of these minerals on the basis of color and luster alone. But demantoid and tourmaline of gem quality are very local and uncauon, while the hues of chrysoprase and turquoise, minerals which ave wore widely distributed, sean to disqualify thas because of their pallor. While it hardly scans possible that we can ever be certain about the “true” identity of ancient tang-kan--if it ever had a unique identity--it must be admitted that the canJidute of ut least two modem authorities is by far the most plausible one: it was malachite.?? This hundsum: green carbonate of copper has important credentials. It 1s often found in copper wines, and 4s therefore regularly ut the disposal of copper- and bronze-producing peoples. It has, in certain varieties, a lovely silky luster, caused by its fibrous structure, It is soft and easily cut. It takes @ good polish. It was ‘commonly made into beads both in the western and eastern worlds. Above all, even uncut malachite often has a nodular or botryoidal structuie, like little clumps of bright green beads, one of the classical forms attributed to Lang- kan, Sometimes, too, it is stalactitic, like little stone trees, Leaving this realm of high probability we can even speak of actualities: malachite was indeed an importunt geustone of pre-llan China. In particular, inlays of 245 W. Schafer, Tu Wan's Stone Catalogue, p. 95; E. M. Schafer, “The Origin of an Era," Journal of the Anwrican Oriental Soviety, 1965, 45: 545. E. Read and C. Pak, "A Compendium of Hedicine from the Pen Tw'ao Kany Mu, Li Shih Chen, 1597 A,D.," Phe Peking Sooiety of Natral Hiatury Bullutin, 1928, 5; 21 (item 32).M malachite decorated ceremonial bronze weapons of the Shang and early Chou periods, and ornamented the ritual vessels of late Chou times’® In brief, along with turquoise and to a lesser extent curnelian amd jade, malachite was one of the most exploited gens of classical antiquity. Tt is hard to avoid the conviction that it was indeed the Zang-kan of Ilan and earlier times. Indeed we need a word for gen-quality malachite for that period. In early sedieval Cimes the ordinary variety of the minoral--granular, stone, or « thy, and chiefly used as a pignent--was "green verditer” (Ja onting bi By this time the word lang-kan was obsolescent, increasingly restricted to Fairy gems and exotic, even imaginary jewels, If this was so, it shared the fute of many other old names of gemstones, most notably chtiung 1% and ue Lung-kun--malachite or not--was an ingredignt of Tavist elixirs during the Six bynasties period, as T’ao Ihung-ching made plain when he wrote: may be transmuted into a ‘cinnabar' (canf}-)," that is, into a drug of imaortality based, as usually, on mercuric sulphide.?? But this was only a step in the evolution of an incredibly synthesized luiy-kun which bore, it seems, about the same relation to the natural mineral as strontium titanate, known in the gem trade by such names as “lustigent and "zenithite," does to the true diamond of Jagersfontein and Dutoitspan. We tany-kan elixir--as distingnishal fron the novel coralline Lang-kan of Tang und Sung, and from the fading image of an attractive gem Crom the southwest anid the fur west--was, in Tlang times, already well Miown asa Ching in HSe16, wtihough its image was not Gitine ty distinct frum these other identitaes. Consider, by way Of example, a poow of distinctly Tavist Character written by ku K'uang BAERI (ea, 725-cu. 814), embellished with the images of a sacred crane, the walled city of Hsi Wang Mt, and a Jade Homn. This splendid supernatural array concludes with uw food, a dish for the gods, nest blown of lang-kan.124 xmong many available descriptions of these geamy inlays in bronze, see espectally John R. Getcens, The Freer Chineve Uroneev I]: Technical Studies (Washington, D.C., 1967-69), pp. 197, 204. 27420 tuny-ching, Ming ¢ pick tw AW HVT Gin pen tatao kang au, 8: 40). The Her Wa Ti net chun offers a cancalizing glimpse of a transitional stage between the natural mineral, used as a reagent, and the mystic elixir of che same nawe. Among the fantastic drugs wald by Hel Kung Hu lo be essent tal co the attainment of endiesy Mife was “the aig |-tin?} vegetable of the Cyan Sea," apparently w name related to the shorter "cyan kan” of which we have already taken nore. See KM. Schipper, L'ompercur Kou dew Mant duno le Tejonde tasiate. fan Hou-ti met cehouan (Publications de 1 Ecole Frangulve d'Extr@ue-Ordent, 58, Paris, 1965), p. 82. 8h ang-kan ying UE. ku Kuang, Misten Wang dan chung chfen taeng ch!in hao," Ch'in Tho vhih, han 4, tele ¥, bs 104,Schafer 3s Michel Stricknann has written « vivid exposition of the hypothesis that this elixir was an agent of selé-Liberation, @ lethel nectar, a compound of mineral poisons which guaranteed life after death to the daring adept, as death in @ holy war guaranteed a blissful career in # rosy paradise to the fallen Muslim warrior. 29 A detailed account of the preparation of this elixir is provided by an alchemical scripture preserved in the Taoist canon. Nathan Sivin begun the study of this importunt text same years ago, and his findings will appear in print very soon? ‘The scripture, which calls the elixir "efflorescence of lang-kan," may be very old istdeed, as Strickmann suggests, possibly antedating even T'ao Hung-ching's classical account of the preparation. The text describes a busic mix of fourteen reagents, for which the cubalistic names are given and explained by glosses consisting of their ordinary mineralogical pynonyus,. These scholia are termed “orally transmitted secrets" (k‘ou oleh AEA ). They can, for the most part, be given correct identities, which are readily tabulated as follows: GHINESE NAME MINERAL SPECIES QUAMICAL COMPOSITION 1 tan oka = FE SY cinnabar gs 2. hwiung huang realgar ASS 3. po ohih ping a4 A witky quartz SiO, 4. klung ohting EA azurite 13(005) (AN) 2 5. tau ahth ying , & FR amethyst SiO, 6. ohth eat a” § graphite c 7. haiao ahih | AB Aa niter (+ soda nicer?) KNO, (+NuND57) 8. ohih tiv huang %2Rs % sulphur s 9. yang oh's ohih hein™? ee AD tremolite (7) Ca MB gSi 907 (AH) 2(7) 10. yun ma HB nica KAI (A1S{ 30, 9) (CHF) 2 Michel Strickmaan, “On the Alchesy of T'ao tung-ching,” unpubl tated dental aspects of Taotur alchuay, 40, and in Chen kao 4% (ed. vf script on the tran Tlao Hung-ching in Pen tw'ao kang mu, 8: Haueh hin t'ao yuan): 4: 0, a SE Mt RAY appear in the 15u-17a. See references co rtat wat Ling whu tay wei_lang-kan hua tun when chen ahing ching ARR Sh $ (Tao tuang, 120, 1a-8b), orthcouiug Vol. 5, Pt. 4 of Sotense anf Civilisation in China. Sivin's study will3o GUINESE NAM MINERAL SPECIES GUMTCAL COMPOSITION 11, ohin ya ohth ? A Aa itharge, massicot PbO 12, hu fen BAN corse 2PbOD, P(A » 13. jung yon AAA, sates (precipitated in CaSO, .211,0,Ca504, desert lakes; gypsun, a pa anhydrite, and halite Real appear in’ that order) 14. tatu huang HEL FR orpinent As. Maye idenctfteattoa of yang oh! shih BB £2 4, to vuteh our cext addy the untywe hein “heurt"=-a hapur Luyonenon vo far av 1 can Letl--offere vome problewa. T'ao Mung-ching, quoted tn Pun ta’ao kung m, 10, 2, calle tt “root of wica . . , guch resembling mica . . . rather brownish. Su saya that the best 1e white, resembling yin nieh RY WJ (amall tips of stalactites but having some of the glows of alca, hence the variant name of "wh aton the Shen mung pun ta'ao ching. There to a black variety, like black atca Q@iotiie). Several medieval wedicul authorities compare its appearance to that of Wolk Gangs ur of arcuvheada, Mayutum! Kuzunosuke, Shovoin yakulutuw -chawhin to auru kodat sekéyaku no kunikyu, 1: Shouoin no kobutuu (kyoto, 1957), p. 196; and Read and Pak, op. oft., no. 75, both identify this sub- stance remolite." Read and Pak report that the specimens labelled yang ch'i shih which they purchaved in shopu were sometimes calcite, some- Ciwey “sulphate of Mime" (4.e., anhydrite or gypsum). A sample from Pek however, proved to be actinolite asbestou, Actinullte belongs lo the bame faoworphuus wertew av treaolite. Part of tty mugnewlum tw ceplaced by tron, which colors Lt green--a feature of yang ehti vhih not mentioned hy any Clavwteal wuchor tty. Tough compact varlet lew at Cremlice aid aecinal ie const Leutu weply (le Jade.) the old pharmacalogtatu eter t eo vistet wive Ch orhou ge MP (hes, Git-nan-luten fA) Bk ta with a) LP ang Claes aw the priwe wource of yung oh'i hi. Thoy-vlu, 26: 6b, Mate tale and lca awong the chfef products of that reglon, and these minerals ace very commonly gagociated with tremolite, which often occurs, for instance, in tale schists. Tremolite often displays a lustrous, radiating, crystalline etcuc- ture, commonly with @ satiny gloss, These radiating clusters could be the wolf fangs or arrowheads of the pharmacologists. As for the black variety, thig would be the closely related amphibole called hornblende. The arcane names for yany ch’i ehih provided by Mel Piaof¥ Ks, (Shih yas erh ae Hi [Tao toung, 588}), among thea a quaber etroayly suggesting a pentachromatic weintillation, such ua “five-colored lotus" (ux ee fu-Junj), gust give us Pause, unless they refer to some Jaboratory-kade elixir tn which yang ch't whih 16 the crucial ingredient. In any case, the first of Mel Plao's synonyme iu che reypeetably unclent one of "white stone." Sivia, Chinvee Alohemy: Preliminary Studies (Harvard Monogrupha in the liistory of Science, It Cumbridge, Ma 1908), p. 293, gives the must probable solution, chat hang ch'i ghih te not a eingle alneral specles, but the class of amphiboles. (1 once thought that yang ch'i ahih vas a potassium feldspar. See E. H. Schafer, "Notes on Mica in Hedfeval China," Tlourng Fao, 1955, 45: 265-286. T no Longer hold thts view.) 7 hte name te not a uaual one for gxide of lead (Litherge and massicot ere chemlcally identical, byt crystallize in difference forms). Mel Piao gives chien hing hua 48 KE, huang ching RRR , whi kung huang. Se 4 ea Muang ya RH for PLO. 1 belleve chat ve have a new synonym here. Cl. EB. He Schafer, "the Early Hiscory of Lead Pigments aud Cosmetics in Chioa," Tfoung Pas, W950, 44s 41dSchafer ” (L shall not list all of the cabalistic names of these ingredients, but give only the first of thea by way of example. This is “Vermilion Child of Scarlet Tumulus" [ohtang ling ohu orh $4 PR HK $8, 1, representing cinnabar.) ‘The scripture tells the precise quantities in which these mineral reagents must be combined, all in tems of catties (chin f ), or fractions thereof: thus, cinnabar, ten catties; realgar, five catties; azurite, one-half catty, and so on. All of these components mist be triturated, then put into @ cauldron in a fixed order, like the stratified liqueurs in a pousse cufe. The cinnabar is added last, to form the uppermost layer. Qn top of all, the alchemist pours three catties of pure quicksilver. The whole is sealed, first with "yellow cimabar clay" (huang tan nt Fe FE 2), , a luce that contains minium, Pb30,), and then with o ture in which oyster shells (calcite, CuGd,) ure the prime ingredient. AIL is encased in fine earth before firing. Tho firing lasts a hundred days, with » three-day cooling period et the end. When opened, a volatile efflorescence shimaers on the surface of the preparation, This mst be brushed away with a cock's feather, after which the surfuce displays a dazzling coruscation of many colors. This beautiful product is "the cinnubar of larg-kan efflorescence.” Taken by the alept in small quantities under carefully prescribed circumstances it will yield wonderful results, not the least of which are a seven-colored aura emanating from his head and a ‘jade refulgence with golden efflorescence" on his fuce. Other wdvantuyes include the following: “Spit on the ground, und lyour saliva] will bo transformed into w flying dragon; whistle to the te and tho divine transcundents will instantly attend your Levee." Ascent into the revlw of Highvst ily dy the grewtest of the bouns provided by this marvelous drug. Presumably this elixir was actually concocted many times in the course of the medieval centuries. But, unless @ bold experimenter now wishes to sacrifice the third part of # year in anxious vigilance, with added hazards due to philological error, we shall not soon enjoy its gloriaus aspect. Perhaps a few superficial observations about its nature will not Prove amiss, however. Obviously we cannot be certein about the most desirable temperature in the divine crucible, but if we assume that it was moderate by modern standards, sone of the ingredients would remain inert, while we could expect some activity an the part of such radicals as Ng, As, Cu, K, Pb, Ca, (Nat), C, S, (C12), COs, NOs, S0,, GH, and O. It seems probable that the end product would be @ "flint glass--that is, glass with a high lead con- tent, the glass of cerunic glazes, artificial jewelry, and the like. The ingredients essential to such an outcome, about 20 to 40 per cent silica and about SO to 80 per cent lead oxide, are both abwalantly present in the mix. Usually @ small anount of potash, soda, or aluninu is desirable; they are present here, if only in traces, and in any case the niter would uct as u flux.a A typical flint glass softens at only 630°, no great problem with simple equipment. Presumably the copper would add a bluish tint, which might account for the charming classical name of lang-kan. ‘The effects of other melallic ions in the melt, for instance those of mercury, 1 cannot predict.