Though bearing, it may be, an undue share of the imperfection which cleaves to all human effort, the work has already found its way into the literature of various nations of diverse intellectual standing. Last year, for example, a new German edition was published “under the special supervision” of Helmholtz and Wiedemann. That men so eminent, and so overladen with official duties, should add to these the labor of examining and correcting every proof-sheet of a work like this, shows that they consider it to be what it was meant to be—a serious attempt to improve the public knowledge of science. It is especially gratifying to me to be thus assured that not in England alone has the book met a public want, but also in that learned land to which I owe my scientific education. Before me, on the other hand, lie two volumes of foolscap size, curiously stitched, and printed in characters the meaning of which I am incompetent to penetrate. Here and there, however, I notice the familiar figures of the former editions of “Sound.” For these volumes I am indebted to Mr. John Fryer, of Shanghai, who, along with them, favored me, a few weeks ago, with a letter from which the following is an extract: “One day,” writes Mr. Fryer, “soon after the first copy of your work on Sound reached Shanghai, I was reading it in my study, when an intelligent official, named Hsii-chung-hu, noticed some of the engravings and asked me to explain them to him. He became so deeply interested in the subject of Acoustics that nothing would satisfy him but to make a translation. Since, however, engineering and other works were then considered to be of more practical importance by the higher authorities, we agreed to translate your work during our leisure time every evening, and publish it separately ourselves. Our translation, however, when completed, and shown to the higher officials, so much interested them, and pleased them, that they at once ordered it to be published at the expense of the Government, and sold at cost price. The price is four hundred and eighty copper cash per copy, or about one shilling and eightpence. This will give you an idea of the cheapness of native printing.” Mr. Fryer adds that his Chinese friend had no difficulty in grasping every idea in the book.