Wells have been sunk by contractors, with whom the mayor of the village (hsiang lao) dealt. A brick caisson, fitted on a bamboo frame, is dug under and sunk. On this caisson the upper wall is built. Sometimes iron-pointed bamboo pipes are driven through the bottom of the well. These old methods will give way to the new, and windmills will begin to hum in old China. The modern water-works of Peking take the water from the Sha Ho, a clear stream in the Western Hills. There are settling tanks, pumping stations, stand-pipes, etc. One hundred and thirty thousand families are supplied from the mains. The same concession to labor has been made as at Hongkong, in that the cleaning of the filter sand and gravel is done by hand instead of by machine. Nearly all the treaty ports are putting in modern water-works, which have been sorely needed. China’s death rate is decreasing, and it is not necessary, even from a Chinese point of view, that there should be so many births or dual wives any more. Electric light plants are in operation at nearly all the coast treaty ports, as well as at some of the Yangtze treaty ports and West River ports inland. In the Occident, intellectual and spiritual light preceded lighted roads and the light of science, but as everything is opposite in China, it seems that science is preceding intellectual and spiritual light. But “these twain shall meet in one equator round the globe”. The Lighthouse Department of the National Customs is employing foreign engineers in harbor and channel work, and some improvements have been made on the coast and along the rivers, the provincial authorities making a special tax wherever possible to foot the bills. Often the boatmen, merchants’ and bankers’ guilds are required to subscribe. The first systematized attempt to handle public works scientifically was undertaken by the provincial assemblies of Nganhwei and Kiangsu provinces in the summer of 1911, during the awful famines, which followed the great floods. America has sent large contributions of flour and money for rice. The assemblies put the men, whom the floods withheld from their fields, on railway building, canal dredging, bridge building, and road making. It was along these roads that the triumphant right wing of the republicans marched, headed by Generals Hsu and Ling, in the memorable attack on Nanking, which broke the imperial resistance, and threw the Manchu over the yamen wall!