Ancient Chinese Contributions William Heyward Strayer University Dr. Andrew Allphin February 7, 2013
The ancient Chinese have been given credit for many of the inventions that we use today. Let it also be known that China is a powerful source of useful and exciting inventions to include porcelain, gunpowder, paper, and horse harnesses. The Chinese came up with the concept of row planting sometime in the sixth century BC. It was believed that row planting would allow for the crops to grow stronger and faster and maximizing more efficient planting, irrigation, field maintenance, and culling of the crops. This idea wasn’t introduced to the western hemisphere for another two thousand two hundred years. Steven H. (April 18, 2009), 10 Great Chinese Ancient Inventions, Retrieved from http;//www.listverse.com/2009/04/
Developed in the fourth century the Chinese invented the lodestone compass to determine direction. Pointing in a southward position and used mainly on land the lodestone compass was used mostly for direct routes. Between two hundred and two BC and two hundred and twenty BC the seed drill was introduced, its function was to plant the seeds at a precise depth into the tilled earth and cover it up. Before this invention seeds were simply hand spread across the soil which resulted in uneven growth, and wasted seeds. The Europeans began to use farming machinery of this kind in the mid eighteen hundreds despite Camillo Torello being issued a patent in 1566. Retrieved from http://wwwchina.org nd
A major development in ancient Chinese farming was the use of iron moldboard plows. Thought to have been originally invented in the fourth century BC they became plentiful and popular by the Han Dynasty. The ability to adjust the strut altering the distance of the blade allowed you to choose the depth you would like to have plowed. It was not until the seventeenth century that England would be introduced to this technology which proved to work producing an abundance of crops. By the first century BC the Chinese had developed the technology needed for deep drilling boreholes. Deep drilling proved to be very profitable and useful as they drilled they reached and collected deposits of natural gas used for fuel purposes to produce salt. The first recorded deep drilling in the United States was in West Virginia the eighteen twenties. . Steven H. (April 18, 2009), 10 Great Chinese Ancient Inventions, Retrieved from http;//www.listverse.com/2009/04/
The principle of gunpowder was discovered by the Chinese in the first century AD. But it was not used for guns ironically instead it was used to create pick bangs and flashes at festivals. They would mix saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal dust they would then insert it into a bamboo tube and toss it into a flame. Tea has been very important to the Chinese in 2737 BC emperor Shen Nung had drank a cup of water in which some Camellia bush had fallen into leading to the discovery of tea. The Chinese learned how to
