SELER] MEXICAN PICTURE WRITINGS 229 



they have hiin among other manuscript treasures in the Ko3'^al 

 Library, little noticed, or, more correctly speaking, seldom used. Tt 

 is partly owing to facts that have only very recently become known 

 that I have been able to make these fragments dividge some portion 

 of their contents. 



Last year we celebrated the four hundredth annivei'sary of the day 

 on which Columbus, the discoverer of America, first set foot in the 

 New World, and within a few years we can celebrate the one 

 hundredth anniversary of the day on which the scientific discoverer 

 of the New World, Alexander von Humboldt, began his travels on 

 that continent. May this volume, which is the first attempt at treat- 

 ing of the only one of his collections hitherto untreated, be not wholly 

 unworthy of the great name which it bears on the title page. 



