194 



NA TURE 



[December 17, 1908 



tvoe in footnotes for common names which are 

 already transliterated into English in the text. We 

 have seen the Tibetan cryptic spell written in a variety 

 of ways in travellers' narratives, but we do not re- 

 member to have seen it rendered " Om mane padme 

 horn," as it repeatedly appears here. On the other 

 hand, Mr. Johnston tells the story of his journeyings 

 pleasantly and effectively, and with much literary skill; 

 and he gives in appendices three pages of valuable 

 vocabularies in the dialects of five tribes (Yung-ning 

 Liso, Yung-ning Moso, Muli [Njong], Pa-u-rong Hsi- 

 fan, and Pa-u-rong Lolo) ; also some statistical and 

 fiscal information translated at first hand from the 

 otificial records of Mount Omei and the Ssuch'uan pro- 

 vincial chronicles. 



He is a believer in the reality of the " Yellow 

 Peril," and picturesquely supports the tragic con- 

 jecture that the Western peoples some day may 

 be crushed out of existence and their vellow 



doom of the conqueror in this fight is that he must 

 never sheath his sword. New challengers are ever 

 pressing into the lists, and the challenged must ever 

 go armed and with lance in rest." L. A. \V. 



INTERNATIONAL PHYSICS. 

 T3 ECENT work at the Bureau international des 

 J-*- Poids et Mesures is described in the volumes 

 referred to below.' The volumes, like their prede- 

 cessors, are full of interest to the physicist concerned 

 with exact measurements, and are a monument lo 

 the services rendered to science by the International 

 Committee of Weights and Measures and the director 

 and staff of the well-known institution at Sevres. 

 Though twenty-two nations participate in the work 

 of the committee, the total budget of the institution 

 is limited by statute to 4000/. a year. This sum is 

 made up by contributions by the different nations on 



Crossing the Yalung River. From " From Peking to Mandalay, 



successors scarcely regret their disappearance any 

 more than we ourselves regret the extinction of 

 the dinotherium or the ichthyosaurus. " Why indeed 

 should they?" he asks. "When we consider how 

 seldom the memory even of our own dead ancestors 

 touches our sympathies or prompts an affectionate 

 thought, it will not seem strange that in days to 

 come the victorious Yellow man may regard the 

 extinct White man with no more emotion than the 

 visitor to a museum now regards the wire-linked bones 

 of a prehistoric monster. No creature that is doomed 

 to failure in the struggle for existence need look to the 

 conquerors for the least sign of pity or sympathy. 

 No less cheerfully warbles the thrush because the 

 great auk will flap his ineffectual wings no more. 

 Even the crocodile refrains from shedding tears over 

 the fossil remains of the Triassic stagoiwlepis. It 

 behoves us to remember that victory in the struggle 

 for existence is not a victory once and for all. The 



NO. 2042, VOL. 79] 



a scale based on their respective populations, tlie latter 

 being multiplied in each case bv an appropriate factor, 

 I, 2, or 3, according as the metric system is not 

 employed, is permissive, or is obligatory. The United 

 Kingdom recently passed from Class (i) to Class (2), 

 and, paying only on the population of the mother 

 country, contributed, in 1907, 6339 francs, or about 

 one-sixteenth of the total sum required. 



After some interesting correspondence between the 

 International Committee and the British Government 

 on the question of the representation of the colonies 

 belonging to this country, Canada has just entered 

 the convention as an autonomous nation having its 

 own delegate. 



At the present time Great Britain is in the happy 



1 " Proces-verbaux des Stances du Comil^ international de< Poids et 



