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members of the class. I hence reward it as a distinct honour to have been entrusted with the making and launching of a new edition of this dictionary, which, when first issued, was one of the earliest first-fruits of Dr. Chalmers’ arduous and varied labours in the wide field of Sinology.

I have interfered neither with the original method of transliteration—highly praised by so competent and exacting a eritic as Dr. Eitel, formerly Inspector of Schools in this Colony—nor with the systern of tone-marks adopted; both are possibly as effective and useful as any other of several in present use. If, in any subsequent edition, it is deemed advisable to change the mode of marking the pronunciation, such change, I think, should be made on the lines indicated in the “reform movement” for acquiring modern languages now in active progress among the recognized leaders of phonetic reform in Enrope; and with which, in Germany, Professor Viëtor; in France, Monsieur Paul Passy, and Monsieur l’abbé Rousselot—the discoverer of the system of experimental phonetics which, with its remarkable instruments of precision, brings to hear on the analysis of sounds the exactitude of microscopic examination; and in England, Mr. Walter Rippmann, are so closely and prominently connected. In which case, it might be found necessary to adopt the alphabetic symbols authorized by the Association Phonétique Internationale. The change implied is not so radical as would seem: the difficulties in the way of such an enterprise are not as great as might, at first sight, be imagined. There can be no question about a