Library

"Natural History" is a collection of strange novels originally written by Zhang Hua, a naturalist in the Western Jin Dynasty, and collected and compiled by later generations. Zhang Hua was knowledgeable and relied on his position to collect extensive information and lay the foundation for the book. The original book may have had four hundred volumes, but it was cut to ten volumes at the request of Emperor Wu of the Jin Dynasty because the content was "too frivolous". The current volume has ten volumes, which record the geography of mountains and rivers, birds and animals, biographies, myths and ancient history, magical magic, etc., Covering many fields of knowledge. For example, when talking about geography, there are introductions to the Five Mountains, the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, as well as strange geographical phenomena; when talking about animals and plants, they describe their forms, habits, etc., And there are also records of ginseng and other medicinal materials; there are also myths and legends in the book, such as the story of "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl" which appeared here for the first time. It is another all-encompassing marvelous book in China after the Classic of Mountains and Seas. It provides important historical materials for the study of society, etiquette and customs, art history and philology before the Jin Dynasty, and promotes the development of ancient natural science to a certain extent.