the seeds, covered the seeds, and pressed the land flat at the same time. The machine was known for its utility and efficiency for serving several agricultural uses at the same time, while saving time and effort. M Magic mirrors: In about 800 AD, during the Tang Dynasty (618–907), a book entitled Record of Ancient Mirrors described the method of crafting solid bronze mirrors with decorations, written characters, or patterns on the reverse side that could cast these in a reflection on a nearby surface as light struck the front, polished side of the mirror; due to this seemingly transparent effect, they were called 'light-penetration mirrors' by the Chinese. Unfortunately, this Tang era book was lost over the centuries, but magic mirrors were described in the Dream Pool Essays by the Song dynasty polymath Shen Kuo (1031–1095), who owned three of them as a family heirloom. Perplexed as to how solid metal could be transparent, Shen guessed that some sort of quenching technique was used to produce tiny wrinkles on the face of the mirror too small to be observed by the eye. Although his explanation of different cooling rates was incorrect, he was right to suggest the surface contained minute variations which the naked eye could not detect; these mirrors also had no transparent quality at all, as discovered by British scientist and mathematician William Bragg in 1932. Mahjong: The Dutch journalist and writer Jelte Rep writes that the gambling game of mahjong (Traditional Chinese: 麻將; Pinyin: májiàng), which employs a set of over a hundred tiles, was first invented in 1846 by Zhen Yumen, a Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) diplomatic official from Ningbo. However, Rep traces the origins of the game to a card game of the Tang Dynasty (618–907) which used thirty-two wood or ivory pieces in the shape of cards. This evolved into the forty-card game of madiao (馬吊) during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), which had four suits of cards instead of the three found in modern mahjong. Match, non-friction: The earliest type of match for lighting fire was made in China by 577 AD, invented by Northern Qi (550–577) court ladies as they desperately looked for materials to light fires for cooking and heating as enemy troops of Northern Zhou (557–581) and the Chen Dynasty (557–589) besieged their city from outside. Early matches in China were designed to be lit by an existing flame and carried