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PREFACE. 



The essence of these pages is an incomplete subdivision of a purposed volume which 

 will contain, in addition, a review and estimate of the native civilizations, an analysis 

 of the Maya codices, a reconstruction of the Yucatec and Cakchiquel calendars 

 together with an alignment of the dates in their records with our chronology, and 

 considerable other matter pertaining to the subject of undiscovered America. The 

 work has been the slow outgrowth of years of patient toil ; and many more toilsome 

 years will be necessary to its completion. The appearance of this fragment now, in its 

 unfinished state, is due to a request of Mr. Alfred P. Maudslay, who desires to have 

 the chronological tables and some other matter herein contained put on record, so that 

 he may be able to refer to them during the course of publication of his magnificent 

 work on the archaeology of Central America. 



The foregoing statement is made less in excuse of the imperfection of this book than 

 to afford opportunity for doing justice to Dr. Gustav Eisen of San Francisco, the 

 absence of whose name in conjunction with mine on the titlepage will be a source of 

 surprise to many of his friends. He was the first to direct my attention to the Maya 

 inscriptions. For twelve years he has been intimately associated with me in the study 

 of them, collecting most of the material I have had to work upon, and encouraging me 

 to persist at the times I grew faint-hearted and ready to give up the apparently 

 hopeless task. He has completed a series of careful drawings in which the glyphs are 

 arranged in accordance with a plan of his own, and has in preparation an elaborate 

 monograph on the Maya civilization, and much other cognate matter — all of which 

 will constitute an important feature of the complete volume we have in view, but would 

 be quite aside from the purpose of this preliminary issue. 



