It created no sort of surprize to any of us, on finding that the Chinese who accompanied these reverend gentlemen were completely ignorant of the nature of a complicated machine, whose motions, regulated by the most ingenious mechanism that had ever been constructed in Europe, represented all those even of the most irregular and eccentric of the heavenly bodies; nor in perceiving that they seemed to be rather disappointed in the appearance and operations of this instrument. It was obvious, from the few questions put by the president of this learned body, that he had conceived the planetarium to be something similar to one of those curious pieces of musical mechanism which, in the Canton jargon, are called _Sing-songs_, and that nothing more was necessary than to wind it up like a jack, when it would immediately spin round, and tell him every thing that he wanted to know. But the difficulty of making the right reverend Bishop and his colleagues comprehend the principles upon which it was constructed, and the several phenomena of the heavenly bodies exhibited by it, conveyed almost as bad an opinion of their astronomical and mathematical knowledge as of that of their president. The prelate, however, appeared to be a man of mild and placid temper, pleasing manners, and of a modest and unassuming deportment. His secretary was a keen sharp fellow, extremely inquisitive, and resolved not to lose the little knowledge he might acquire, for he wrote down the answer to every question that was proposed. The following day the Bishop came unattended by the Chinese part of their board, and gave us some account of the nature of their employ. The astronomical part of the national almanack, such as calculating eclipses, the times of new and full moon, the rising and setting of the sun, were, as he informed us, entrusted to him and his colleagues, but the astrological part was managed by a committee of the Chinese members. He candidly avowed that neither he nor any of his European brethren were well qualified for the task, and that they had been hitherto more indebted to the _Connoissances de tems_ of Paris than to their own calculations. That having exactly ascertained the difference of meridians between Pekin and Paris, they had little difficulty in reducing the calculations made for the latter, so as to answer for the situation of the former, at least to a degree of accuracy that was sufficiently near the truth not to be detected by any of the Chinese members. The French revolution having put an end to future communications with that country was to them a severe blow in this respect, though the secretary thought he could now manage the calculation of an eclipse sufficiently correct to pass current with the Chinese. Fortunately, however, Doctor Dinwiddie had provided himself on leaving London with a set of the nautical almanacks, calculated for the meridian of Greenwich, up to the year 1800, which they considered as an invaluable present.