My idea of the book is a dictionary of the spoken language of north China, in all its length and breadth, including on the one hand all the colloquialisms that the people use in everyday life,—all they use in Chi-li and in Shantung, and in all the Mandarin-speaking provinces, so far as we can get it, noting, of course, as such, the words and phrases we know to be local. Further, let it include as a prominent feature all sorts of ready-made idiomatic phrases, and in general all combinations of two or more characters in which the meaning coalesces, or varies from the simple rendering of the separate characters. Considerable preliminary work had already been done, when the death of Mrs. Goodrich compelled her husband to withdraw from the partnership; and the project was abandoned by Mateer, though with a hope that it might be resumed. In 1900, however, as the fruit of this and kindred studies he published an analysis of two thousand one hundred and eighteen Chinese characters. This little book was designed to help children in dictation exercises to write characters, and is still largely used for this purpose by mission schools. The huge dictionary, though never completed, had three direct descendants. With Dr. Goodrich it produced first a Chinese phrase book, and then a pocket Chinese-English dictionary, which for brevity and comprehensiveness is a marvel, and which is regarded by almost every student of Chinese as a necessity. In marked contrast with these two volumes is an immense dictionary left behind in manuscript by Dr. Mateer. It is wholly in Chinese; and as it lies unfinished it occupies more than a cubic foot of space, and consists of a set of volumes. No comprehensive dictionary of the Chinese language has been published for two hundred and fifty years, and the last issued had been mainly classical. The object of this was to supply the evident need of a great new work of that sort. One insurmountable difficulty encountered was a phonetic arrangement commanding common usage. None had the requisite approval. Fortunately, on this undertaking Dr. Mateer did not spend his own time, except so far as that was necessary to direct the preparation of it by his scribes when they were not otherwise employed.