in ornithology. See ANAS.

SWANPAN, or Chinese ABACUS; an instrument for performing arithmetical operations, described by Du Halde in his History of China.

It is composed of a small board, crossed with 10 or 12 parallel rods or wires, each strung with ivory balls, which are so divided by a partition in the middle, that two are on one side of it, and five on the other. The two in the upper part stand each for five units, and each of the five in the lower part for one. "In joining and separating these balls, they reckon much as we do with counters; but, according to our author, more expeditiously than Europeans do even with figures." This is hardly credible; but if all the Chinese weights and measures be decimally divided, as by his very lame description of the swanpan they would appear to be, it is easy to conceive how computation may be made by this instrument very expeditiously. The instrument, too, may be so contrived as to suit any division of weights and measures, and in that form be useful to the blind; but as we have elsewhere given descriptions of superior instruments, for their accommodation (see BLIND) it is needless to offer in this place any improvement of the swanpan.