In one respect, the presentation of such a subject by a compiler, while shorn of the fascinating element of personal experience, has an advantage even over the narrator who describes a country through which he has travelled. With the various reports of many witnesses, in many times and places, before him, he views the whole subject and reduces the many impressions of detail to unity, correcting one by the other. Travellers usually see but a portion of the country at one time. The compiler, if able even in part to control his authorities, and if anything more than a tyro in the art of literary appraisement, may be able to furnish a hand-book of information more valuable to the general reader. In the use of my authorities I have given heed to Bacon’s advice—tasting some, chewing others, and swallowing few. In ancient history, original authorities have been sought, and for the story of modern life, only the reports of careful eye-witnesses have been set down as facts; while opinions and judgments of alien occidentals concerning Corean social life are rarely borrowed without due flavoring of critical salt. Corean and Japanese life, customs, beliefs, and history are often reflections one of the other. Much of what is reported from Corea, which the eye-witnesses themselves do not appear to understand, is perfectly clear to one familiar with Japanese life and history. China, Corea, and Japan are as links in the same chain of civilization. Corea, like Cyprus between Egypt and Greece, will yet supply many missing details to the comparative student of language, art, science, the development of civilization, and the distribution of life on the globe. Some future writer, with more ability and space at command than the undersigned, may discuss the question as to how far the opening of Corea to the commerce of the world has been the result of internal forces; the scholar, by his original research, may prepare the materials for a worthy history of Corea during the two or three thousand years of her history; the geologist or miner may determine the question as to how far the metallic wealth of Corea will affect the monetary equilibrium of the world. The missionary has yet to prove the full power of Christianity upon the people—and before Corean paganism, any form of the religion of Jesus, Roman, Greek or Reformed, should be welcomed; while to the linguist, the man of science, and the political economist, the new country opened by American diplomacy presents problems of profound interest. W. E. G. Schenectady, N. Y., October 2, 1882. BIBLIOGRAPHY.