As a pendant to this work Li Fang designed the _T‘ai P‘ing Kuang Chi_, an encyclopædia of biographical and other information drawn from general literature. A list of about three hundred and sixty authorities is given, and the Index fills two hundred and eighty pages. The edition of 1566--a rare work--bound up in twelve thick volumes, stands upon the shelves of the Cambridge University Library. * * * * * Another encyclopædist was MA TUAN-LIN, the son of a high official, in whose steps he prepared to follow. The dates of his birth and death are not known, but he flourished in the thirteenth century. Upon the collapse of the Sung dynasty he disappeared from public life, and taking refuge in his native place, he gave himself up to teaching, attracting many disciples from far and near, and fascinating all by his untiring dialectic skill. He left behind him the _Wên Hsien T‘ung K‘ao_, a large encyclopædia based upon the _T‘ung Tien_ of Tu Yu, but much enlarged and supplemented by five additional sections, namely, Bibliography, Imperial Lineage, Appointments, Uranography, and Natural Phenomena. This work, which cost its author twenty years of unremitting labour, has long been known to Europeans, who have drawn largely upon its ample stores of antiquarian research. * * * * * [Sidenote: THE HSI YÜAN LU] At the close of the Sung dynasty there was published a curious book on Medical Jurisprudence, which is interesting, in spite of its manifold absurdities, as being the recognised handbook for official use at the present day. No magistrate ever thinks of proceeding to discharge the duties of coroner without taking a copy of these instructions along with him. The present work was compiled by a judge named Sung Tz’ŭ, from pre-existing works of a similar kind, and we are told in the preface of a fine edition, dated 1842, that “being subjected for many generations to practical tests by the officers of the Board of Punishments, it became daily more and more exact.” A few extracts will be sufficient to determine its real value:-- (1.) “Man has three hundred and sixty-five bones, corresponding to the number of days it takes the heavens to revolve. “The skull of a male, from the nape of the neck to the top of the head, consists of eight pieces--of a Ts‘ai-chou man, nine. There is a horizontal suture across the back of the skull, and a perpendicular one down the middle. Female skulls are of six pieces, and have the horizontal but not the perpendicular suture. “Teeth are twenty-four, twenty-eight, thirty-two, or thirty-six in number. There are three long-shaped breast-bones. “There is one bone belonging to the heart of the shape and size of a _cash_. “There is one ‘shoulder-well’ bone and one ‘rice-spoon’ bone on each side. “Males have twelve ribs on each side, eight long and four short. Females have fourteen on each side.”