CHINESE CHRONOLOGY AND CYCLES.

This claim is unsupported by evidence. He argues that “nothing could be more probable than that certain scholars should have learned the Yu inscription by heart and then carved a new tablet containing it,” but even this theory original: "supposition" is based on the initial assumption that an original tablet had been destroyed. The Chinese authors whom Mr. Gardner quotes to support his views lived no earlier than the present dynasty The Qing Dynasty (1644–1912), the final imperial dynasty of China, and they offer nothing that was not already noted by Dr. Legge in his review of the history of the tablet. Legge concludes that “although the ancient inscription itself is in all probability genuine, the modern Chinese transcripts must be received with great caution, as Chinese scholars range from complete skepticism to total belief on the subject.” Therefore, as an authority on chronology, the Tablet of Yu is entirely valueless.

In his Treatise on Chinese Chronology original: "Traité de la chronologie Chinoise" (page 66), Antoine Gaubil states that Emperor Qin Shi Huang original: "She hwang-ti," the first emperor of a unified China “erected a stone tablet on which was engraved a eulogy of himself.” Because this remark appears immediately after the description of that emperor’s journey “to the tomb of Yu on Mount Kuaiji original: "Hoey Ki" in the district of Shaoxing original: "Chao-hang" in Zhejiang original: "Chekiang," a province on the eastern coast of China,” it may be that this tablet of Qin Shi Huang has been mistaken for one erected by Yu himself. Gaubil mentions in a note to this passage that “the remains of this monument are still to be seen.”

In an article titled “The Deluge” in the Contemporary Review (November 1879, page 466), François Lenormant François Lenormant (1837–1883) was a prominent French archaeologist and historian makes the following remarks on the Tablet of Yu: