_Jasper_. The Greek Jaspis was in reality, according to Mr. King, a
green Chalcedony.

The Jade of Turkestan is largely derived from water-rolled boulders fished
up by divers in the rivers of Khotan, but it is also got from mines in the
valley of the Karakash River. "Some of the Jade," says Timkowski, "is as
white as snow, some dark green, like the most beautiful emerald (?),
others yellow, vermilion, and jet black. The rarest and most esteemed
varieties are the white speckled with red and the green veined with gold."
(I. 395.) The Jade of Khotan appears to be first mentioned by Chinese
authors in the time of the Han Dynasty under Wu-ti (B.C. 140-86). In A.D.
541 an image of Buddha sculptured in Jade was sent as an offering from
Khotan; and in 632 the process of fishing for the material in the rivers
of Khotan, as practised down to modern times, is mentioned. The
importation of Jade or _Yue_ from this quarter probably gave the name of
_Kia-yue Kwan_ or "Jade Gate" to the fortified Pass looking in this
direction on the extreme N. W. of China Proper, between Shachau and
Suhchau. Since the detachment from China the Jade industry has ceased, the
Musulmans having no taste for that kind of _virtu_. (_H. de la V. de
Khotan_, 2, 17, 23; also see _J. R. G. S._ XXXVI. 165, and _Cathay_, 130,
564; _Ritter_, II. 213; _Shaw's High Tartary_, pp. 98, 473.)

[On the 11th January, 1895, Dr. Sven Hedin visited one of the chief places
where Jade is to be found. It is to the north-east of Khotan, in the old
bed of the Yurun Kash. The bed of the river is divided into _claims_ like
gold-fields; the workmen are Chinese for the greater part, some few are
Musulmans.

Grenard (II. pp. 186-187) says that the finest Jade comes from the high
Karakash (black Jade) River and Yurungkash (white Jade); the Jade River is
called Su-tash. At Khotan, Jade is polished up by sixty or seventy
individuals belonging to twenty-five workshops.

"At 18 miles from Su-chau, Kia-yu-kwan, celebrated as one of the gates of
China, and as the fortress guarding the extreme north-west entrance into
the empire, is passed." (_Colonel M. S. Bell, Proc. R. G. S._ XII. 1890,
p. 75.)

According to the Chinese characters, the name of Kia-yue Kwan does not mean
"Jade Gate," and as Mr. Rockhill writes to me, it can only mean something
like "barrier of the pleasant Valley."--H. C.]

NOTE 3.--Possibly this may refer to the custom of temporary marriages
which seems to prevail in