The Chinese have been long acquainted with the circulation of the blood; they inoculated for the small-pox in the ninth century; and about the same time they invented printing.

Their bronze money was made as early as 1100 B.C., and its form has not been changed since the beginning of the Christian era.

The mariner's compass, gunpowder, and the art of printing were made known to Europe through stories told by missionaries returning from Asia.

These missionaries, coasting the shores of the Celestial Empire in Chinese junks, saw a little box containing a magnetized needle, called Ting-nan-Tchen, or "needle which points to the south." They also noticed terrible machines used by the armies in China called Ho-pao or fire-guns, into which was put an inflammable powder, which produced a noise like thunder and projected stones and pieces of iron with irresistible force.
Father Hue, in his "Christianity in China," says that "the Europeans who penetrated into China were no less struck with the libraries of the Chinese than with their artillery.

They were astonished at the sight of the elegant books printed rapidly upon a pliant, silky paper by means of wooden blocks.