Page:An alphabetical index to the Chinese encyclopaedia.pdf/14

x V. 坤輿 is principally taken up with what we should now class separately as mineralogy and geography. The distinction between the realms of Heaven and Earth, just noted, accounts for 'ice' being a subhead in this section, while 'snow' appears in section I. 輿圖, a chronological survey of the topography of the Empire, is a very lengthy subhead which tends of necessity to overlap, in some degree, the two following sections.

VI. 職方, with a total of 1,544 chüan, is by far the longest of all the sections, no fewer than 56 out of its 223 subheads running to 10 chüan and over. It contains a detailed account of all the prefectures and a few other territorial divisions of China, as they existed at the beginning of the dynasty. In the Index the names of these have been transliterated in roman type, with hyphens, and the abbreviations borrowed from Playfair's Cities and Towns of China.

VII. 山川 consists, as the title suggests, of a string of the most notable mountains and rivers of China, besides a few caves and lakes, and concludes with a long subhead on the Sea. The Yellow River (河) claims 20 chüan, and the Yangtse (江) 12. In consulting this section it should be borne in mind that many, if not most, of these mountains and rivers have a plurality of names, some of them more familiar at the present day than those under which they appear in the Encyclopaedia. The transliteration is in italics.

VIII. 邊裔, literally 'borders' or 'frontiers', is a characteristic Chinese term embracing all foreign nations and countries, from the most insignificant tribes to large and important kingdoms such as Korea and Japan. The arrangement is according to the four points of the compass, east, west, south, and north; but the division naturally lacks the accuracy of modern geographical science, Loo-choo, for instance, being included among the southern and not the eastern countries. A special subhead is devoted to little-known nations of each quarter, and a final one to those which could not be located at all. The Chinese names have been identified so far as possible—a somewhat laborious task, in the course of which the researches of Bretschneider, Watters, Eitel, Hirth, Parker, and others have been utilised. Where an identification is doubtful, the name of its author is added in brackets. If no identification could be made, the name is simply transliterated in italics. As cross-references from the Chinese forms are invariably given, some latitude has been deemed advisable in the use of modern names only roughly indicating the location of ancient states. E.g., Cambodia stands for both Chên-la and Fu-nan, neither of which, of course, can have corresponded precisely with it. In like manner, names of towns (e.g. Samarkand) are taken to represent what was sometimes, like 康居, a very large tract of country. This section ranks third in the number of subheads, but excepting the general subhead, only one of them (Korea) covers more than 10 chüan.

IX. 皇極 'Imperial Perfection' treats of the functions and attributes of the Emperors of China. A subhead occupying 162 chüan, that is, more than half the entire section, is devoted to their historical annals.

X. 宮闈 'Palace Doors' is not concerned with the 'Imperial Buildings', which is the translation given by Mayers, but with the various members of the Imperial Palace, beginning with the Empress Dowager and finishing up with the eunuchs. This is the first section containing biographies, which are arranged chronologically under the dynasties, wherever they occur.