Iles Marquises, Sandwich, Gambier, etc., is by no means a perfect work, but at present it is the only published dictionary of the Marquesan language. The services of M. Pinard, who has resided some time in the islands, have, however, been secured for the Comparative Dictionary,' and he will contribute material from the two dialects known to exist in the group.

The same gentleman will also furnish that portion of the same important work which deals with the Rapanui and Gambier Islands. Most of the people of the Tuamotu, or Low Archipelago, are now speaking the Tahitian language, and I conclude that M. Pinard's contribution on the Gambier Islands dialect is likely to be all that will be obtained from that widely scattered cluster of small islands.

As regards Niue (or Savage Island, sometimes spelt Nieue), a grammar of its language has been prepared by the Rev. W. G. Lawes, who was many years a missionary there, for incorporation in a proposed Comparative Grammar.'

The languages of the Tokelau, or Union, and the Ellice Islands are approximate to the Samoan. Yet they use more sounds than are found in most of the other Sawaiori languages. Samoan books have been used in both of these groups, and most of the people now use that language. I learn that a moderately full vocabulary has been secured for the 'Comparative Dictionary.'

As I have already stated, the Fijians, as a Papuan (or Melanesian) people, are much crossed with Sawaiori or MalayoPolynesian blood, so that in the language of Fiji we find many Sawaiori words. This occurs, too, again in Rotuma (a volcanic island to the north-west of the Fiji Group and recently annexed to the British Empire in answer to the prayers of the inhabitants, in consequence of the unseemly squabbles between the followers of the Catholic and Protestant missionaries), in the language of which island there are a few Sawaiori or Malayo-Polynesian words to be found.

Again, in Uvea, one of the Loyalty Group, and at Fotuna

Aniwa, Mel, and Fil (the two latter places belonging to the island of Efate, in the New Hebrides), there are colonies of brown Polynesians who speak dialects of the Sawaior language.

In regard to the Tarapon or Micronesian languages we know but very little. Mr. Hale published a brief vocabulary of the dialect spoken in Tobi, or Lord North's Island, as also another of the language of Mille, an island in the Radack chain of the Marshall Archipelago.

Of the language of Ponape, one of the Caroline Islands, we know more than of any other dialect of the Tarapon tongue. In 1858 the Rev. L. H. Gulick, M.D., published a small grammar of the Ponape language. In 1872 a revised edition of this, together with a Ponape-English and English-Ponape vocabulary, was published in the 'Journal of the American Oriental Society' (vol. x.), and gives us a fair knowledge of this language.

In 1860 the Rev. E. T. Doane, a missionary residing on Ebon, or Strong's Island, one of the Marshall Group, published in The Friend, at Honolulu, a brief sketch of the Ebon language. It should be added that papers on some of the languages of Micronesia (or Tarapon region) have been published in the Journal du Muséum Godeffroy, at Hamburg. Number I. of that serial for 1873 contains a brief German and Ebon vocabulary by J. Kubary, and Number II. of the same year contains a comparative vocabulary of German, Ebon, and Yap (of the Caroline Islands).

The languages of the Papuan, or Melanesian, or NegritoPolynesian peoples we know more about. The work first in importance on these languages is Die Melaneischen Sprachen nach ihren Grammatischen Bau und Polyneischen Sprachen von H. C. von der Gabelentz (Part I., Leipzig, 1860; Part II., Leipzig, 1873). In the two parts of this work most of the material available for studying the Melanesian or Papuan languages has been worked up. Part I. contains the Bau of Fiji, the Annatom (or more correctly Aneityum), Erromanga, Tana

and Mallikolo (sometimes spelt Malicolo) of the New Hebrides, the Mari and Lifu of the Loyalty Islands, the Duauru dialect of New Caledonia, the Bauro and Guadelcanor, or Gera, of the Solomon Group. Part II. is chiefly derived from the late Bishop Patteson's vocabularies, and contains more or less information on the languages of Fate, Api, Pama, Ambrym, and Vanmarama (north end of Whitsunday Island), in the New Hebrides, the Lifu and Uea (now written Urea) of the Loyalty Islands, the Yehen, or Yengen, of New Caledonia, the Bauro, Mara, Ma-siki, Anudha, Mahaga, and Eddystone Islands of the Solomon Archipelago.

As regards Fiji, Mr. Hale published a grammar and dictionary in his great work already mentioned. There is also a very good grammar and dictionary by the late Rev. D. Hazelwood (second edition edited by the Rev. J. Calvert, without date). Both these works deal almost exclusively with the Bau dialect. As I have already stated, the Bau has been adopted by the missionaries, and into this portions of the Scriptures have been translated.

I have in my possession an admirably got-up Fijian Catholic Prayer-book, Ai Vola ni Lotu Katolika, printed in Sydney in 1864, which is a very complete book of devotion.

There is a useful little grammar of the language of Mota, one of the Banks Islands (London, 1877); and it should be noticed in Dr. R. G. Latham's 'Elements of Comparative Philology' (London, 1862), that the author devotes three or four pages each to the Sawaiori and Tarapon languages, while he gives twenty pages (329-349) to those of the Papuan or Melanesian peoples.

All that is known of the Admiralty islanders is, I believe, confined to the paper of Mr. H. N. Moseley, F.R.S., published in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute' for May, 1877. In the eighth volume of the German 'Journal of Ethnology' (1876), Captain H. Strauch gives us a comparative summary of seven languages belonging to New Guinea, New Hanover, New Ireland, New Britain, and the Solomon Islands.

The above is a list of the most important contributions to the philology of the Pacific. A large field is still open, however, to students of the present day, while good service will ere long be rendered to Polynesian history by the publication of ́a detailed catalogue of every known work upon Australia and the Pacific, which I understand that Mr. E. A. Petherick has had in hand for many years, and for which he has collected materials in different parts of the globe.

FROM THE GOLDEN GATE TO FIJI.

THE completion of the Trans-Continental Railroad of America opened a new era for the islands of the Southern Sea. The great through route to Japan, China, New Zealand, and Australia, via San Francisco, is now an accomplished and very successful fact.

The steamers of the Pacific Mail Company have brought the Sandwich Islands within thirty days of London, and, although the service to Fiji is for the present suspended, there can be no question that the growing importance of our recently acquired territory to say nothing of the surrounding groups—will