Dream Pool Essays
Shen compiled this encyclopedic work while living in forced retirement from government office, naming the book after his private estate near modern Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province.
The Dream Pool Essays was heavily reorganized in reprint editions by later Chinese authors from the late 11th to 17th centuries.
The Dream Pool Essays covers a range of topics including discoveries and advancements in Traditional Chinese medicine, mathematics, astronomy, science and technology, optics, architecture and civil engineering, metallurgy, and early archaeology.
Observations of the natural world included those of wildlife, meteorology, hypotheses advancing early ideas in geomorphology and climate change based on findings of petrification and natural erosion, and strange recorded phenomena such as the description of an unidentified flying object.
In addition to establishing the theory of true north in magnetic declination towards the north pole,[2] Shen was also the first to record the use of a compass for navigation,[3] the first to describe the invention of movable type printing by contemporary artisan Bi Sheng,[4] and the first in China to describe a drydock for repairing boats out of water.
[5] Shen Kuo was a renowned government official and military general during the Northern Song period of China.
However, he was impeached from office by chancellor Cai Que (蔡確; 1036–1093), who wrongly held him responsible for a Song Chinese military defeat by the Tangut-led Western Xia dynasty in 1081 during the Song–Xia wars.
[6] When Shen compiled and published The Dream Pool Essays (Meng Xi Bi Tan, 《梦溪笔谈》) in 1088, he was living in retirement and relative isolation on his lavish garden estate near modern-day Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province.
[9] The Dream Pool Essays was first quoted in a Chinese written work of 1095 AD, showing that even towards the end of Shen's life his final book was becoming widely printed.
Various volumes of Joseph Needham's Science and Civilization in China series published since 1954 contain a large amount of selected English translations of the Dream Pool Essays.
[12] Quoted excerpts from the Dream Pool Essays in French were printed in the written works of J. Brenier in 1989 [a] and J. F. Billeter in 1993.
Das Gesamte Wissen des Alten China, translated and edited by Konrad Herrmann, and published in 1997 by Diederichs Verlag Munich (Gelbe Reihe Magnum, vol.
With Shen's writings on fossils, geomorphology, and shifting geographical climates, he states in the following passages: In the Zhi-ping reign period [1064–67 AD] a man of Zezhou was digging a well in his garden, and unearthed something shaped like a squirming serpent, or dragon.
The ignorant country people smashed it, but Zheng Boshun, who was magistrate of Jincheng at the time, got hold of a large piece of it on which scale-like markings were to be seen exactly like those on a living creature.
The bank collapsed, opening a space of several dozens of feet, and under the ground a forest of bamboo shoots was thus revealed.
[16] When the director of the astronomical observatory asked Shen Kuo why eclipses occurred only on an occasional basis while in conjunction and opposition once a day, Shen Kuo wrote: I answered that the ecliptic and the moon's path are like two rings, lying one over the other, but distant by a small amount.
Zu Geng(-zhi) found out with the help of the sighting tube that the point in the sky which really does not move was a little more than 1 degree away from the summit star.
When the paste [at the back] was slightly melted, he took a smooth board and pressed it over the surface, so that the block of type became as even as a whetstone.
As for the spiritual processes described in the [Book of Changes] that "when they are stimulated, penetrate every situation in the realm," mere traces have nothing to do with them.
In the first quote, Shen Kuo describes a scene where Yu Hao gives advice to another artisan architect about slanting struts for diagonal wind bracing: When Mr. Qian (Wei-yan) was Governor of the two Zhejiang provinces, he authorized the building of a wooden pagoda at the Fan-tian Si (Brahma-Heaven Temple) in Hangzhou with a design of twice three stories.
(Yu) Hao laughed and said: 'That's easy, just fit in struts (pan) to settle the work, fixed with (iron) nails, and it will not move any more.'
This is because the nailed struts filled in and bound together (all the members) up and down so that the six planes (above and below, front and back, left and right) were mutually linked like the cage of the thorax.
[21] Shen Kuo described the natural predator insect similarly shaped to the gou-he ("dog-grubs") which preyed upon the agricultural pest infestation of zi-fang, the moth Leucania separata:[22] In the Yuan-Feng reign period (1078–1085), in the Qingzhou region, an outbreak of zi-fang insects caused serious damage to the crops in the fields in autumn.
[22] Around 1078, Shen Kuo wrote an accurate description of the damaging effects of lightning to buildings and to the specific materials of objects within.
Taking an objective and speculative viewpoint, he stated: A house belonging to Li Shunju was struck by lightning.
Also, a valuable sword made of strong steel had been melted to liquid, without the parts of the house nearby being affected.
Shen wrote that, during the reign of Emperor Renzong (1022–1063), an object as bright as a pearl occasionally hovered over the city of Yangzhou at night, but described first by local inhabitants of eastern Anhui and then in Jiangsu.
[24] Shen wrote that a man near Xingkai Lake observed this curious object; allegedly it: ...opened its door and a flood of intense light like sunbeams darted out of it, then the outer shell opened up, appearing as large as a bed with a big pearl the size of a fist illuminating the interior in silvery white.
The intense silver-white light, shot from the interior, was too strong for human eyes to behold; it cast shadows of every tree within a radius of ten miles.
Narrow sleeves, short dark red or green robes, tall boots and metal girdle ornaments are all barbarian garb.
