In appearance they resemble a French porcelain furnace, abutting on one side of the cabin, and by means of a regulator you are able to reduce the temperature almost to freezing point. Although undoubtedly very pleasant during intense heat, and invaluable for hospital purposes, I question if they will come into anything like general use, for it seems to me that instantaneous changes from a temperature of perhaps one hundred degrees on deck to say sixty degrees in the cabin cannot fail to produce bad effects on the health. Travelling by the easterly route you meet the sun, which causes each day to be shortened. By the westerly route you go with the sun, which causes each day to be lengthened. During the journey round the world the aggregate of these shortenings or lengthenings will amount to twenty-four hours, so that on arriving again in England by the easterly route you will have gained a day, and instead of its being Wednesday, as you might think, it would be Tuesday, wherefore you would be obliged to have two Wednesdays in one week. By the westerly route, on the contrary, you would lose a day, so that returning on a Wednesday by your reckoning you would find everyone else calling it Thursday, and the following morning you would be obliged to recognise as Friday. To avoid such confusion the date is always regulated when crossing the Pacific. Going east, the captain notifies that there will be two consecutive Mondays, or two Thursdays, as the case be, in order to use up the extra day. Going west, on the other hand, one of the days in a week must be omitted, there being no time for it if you are to arrive in port on the proper date. A common story told in this connection is that on a certain voyage from Vancouver to Hongkong some missionary passengers settled to hold service in the saloon at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, and posted up a notice to that effect in the usual place at the head of the saloon stairs, but omitted to previously consult the captain or ask his permission. The captain, having no desire to be ignored, even unintentionally, aboard his own ship, quietly regulated dates, the passengers next morning finding an official notice posted up immediately over that of the missionaries, saying that it would be Sunday until 10 a.m., after which it would be Monday, so that missionaries, Sunday and divine service were all simultaneously suppressed. The most comfortable and the most restful travelling in the world that I know of is on board the large river steamers running up the Yangtse for six hundred miles from Shanghai to Hankow, and then transhipping to somewhat smaller vessels, for the additional four hundred miles to Ichang.