xvi PREFACE. 
(as, for example, elrrtriciti/), and by cross references. Such an encyclopedic method, though unusual 
in dictionaries, needs no defense in a work which has been constructed throughout from the point of 
view of practical utility. In the compilation of the historical matter given, assistance has been received 
from the gentlemen mentioned above whenever their special departments have been concerned, from 
Prof. J. Franklin Jameson in .the history of the United States, from Mr. F. A. Teall, and from others. 
Special aid in verifying dates and other historical matters has been rendered by Mr. Edmund K. Aldeu. 
The pictorial illustrations have been so selected and executed as to be subordinate to the text, 
while possessing a considerable degree of independent suggestiveness and artistic value. Cuts of a <li>- 
tinctly explanatory kind have been freely given as valuable aids to the definitions, often of large 
groups of words, and have been made available for this use by cross references; many 
familiar objects, also, and many unfamiliar and rare ones, have been pictured. To 
secure technical accuracy, the illustrations have, as a rule, been selected by the specialists in charge 
of the various departments, and have in all cases been examined by them in proofs. The work 
presented is very largely original, cuts having been obtained by purchase only when no better ones 
could be made at first hand. The general direction of this artistic work has been intrusted to Mr. 
W. Lewis Fraser, manager of the Art Department of The Century Co. Special help in procuring 
necessary material has been given by Mr. Graston L. Feuardent, by Prof. William R. Ware, by the 
Smithsonian Institution, by the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and by the 
Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. 
In the choice of the typographical style the desire has been to provide a page in which the matter 
should be at once condensed and legible, and it is believed that this aim has been attained in an 
unusual degree. In the proof-reading nearly all persons engaged upon the dictionary have assisted, 
particularly those in charge of technical matters (to nearly all of whom the entire proof has been 
sent) ; most efficient help has also been given by special proof-readers, both by those who have worked 
in the office of The Century Co., and by those connected with The De Vinne Press. 
Finally, acknowledgment is due to the many friends of the dictionary in this and other lands 
who have contributed material, often most valuable, for the use of its editors. The list of authorities 
used, and other acknowledgments and explanations that may be needed, will be given on the comple- 
tion of the work. It should be stated here, however, that by arrangement with its publishers, considerable 
xise has also been made of Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary. 
WILLIAM DWK1HT WHITNEY. 
NEW HAVEN, May 1st, 1889. 
