be without one, lest he become
liable to the greatest misfortunes by undertaking the important measures
on black-balled days.

The price varies now, according to Williams, from 1-1/2_d._ to 5_d._ a
copy. The price in 1328 was 1 _tsien_ or cash for the cheapest edition,
and 1 _liang_ or tael of silver for the _edition de luxe_; but as these
prices were in paper-money it is extremely difficult to say, in the
varying depreciation of that currency, what the price really amounted to.

[Illustration: Mongol Compendium Instrument seen in the Observatory
Garden]

[Illustration: Mongol Armillary Sphere in the Observatory Garden]

["The Calendars for the use of the people, published by Imperial command,
are of two kinds. The first, _Wan-nien-shu, the Calendar of Ten Thousand
Years_, is an abridgment of the Calendar, comprising 397 years, viz. from
1624 to 2020. The second and more complete Calendar is the _Annual
Calendar_, which, under the preceding dynasties, was named _Li-je, Order
of Days_, and is now called _Shih-hsien-shu, Book of Constant Conformity
(with the Heavens)_. This name was given by the Emperor _Shun-chih_, in
the first year of his reign (1644), on being presented by Father John
Schall (_Tang Jo-wang_) with a new Calendar, calculated on the principles
of European science. This _Annual Calendar_ gives the following
indications: (1 deg.) The cyclical signs of the current year, of the months,
and of all the days; (2 deg.) the _long_ and _short_ months, as well as the
_intercalary_ month, as the case maybe; (3 deg.) the designation of each day
by the 5 _elements_, the 28 constellations, and the 12 _happy presages_;
(4 deg.) the day and hour of the new moon, of the full moon, and of the two
dichotomies, _Shang-hsien_ and _Hsia-hsien_; (5 deg.) the day and hour for the
_positions_ of the sun in the 24 zodiacal signs, calculated for the
various capitals of China as well as for Manchuria, Mongolia, and the
tributary Kingdoms; (6 deg.) the hour of sunrise and sunset and the length of
day and night for the principal days of the month in the several capitals;
(7 deg.) various superstitious indications purporting to point out what days
and hours are auspicious or not for such or such affairs in different
places. Those superstitious indications are stated to have been introduced
into the Calendar under the _Yuean_ dynasty." (_P. Hoang, Chinese
Calendar_, pp. 2-3.)--H. C.]

We may note that in Polo's time one of the princ