editions, and which was yet in every case confirmed,
although sometimes with difficulty, by the examination of the original
MS.

The proved value, as well as the scarcity, of these photographs was so
great, that in 1905 I had my set photographed twice, by dry and wet
plate processes, and a few copies printed after a careful comparison and
selection of the two sets of plates. It is from these that the present
edition has grown.[9-*]

The present edition, save for the photographs thus reproduced, having
been entirely redrawn, and partly restored, it is fitting to detail just
what has been done in this respect.

At the very beginning of my introduction to Maya studies the enormous
burdens placed on research therein at every turn, bore upon me as upon
every other student. The subject and its possibilities stimulate
enthusiasm to the highest degree; the rewards of success are greater
than those of any like problem today; and yet, fifty years since the
present Codex was discovered, and thirty years since Dr. Foerstemann's
unsurpassable edition of the Dresden Codex, the actual workers on the
problem are the barest handful. A few scattered and obscure references
amongst the volumes on volumes of Spanish writers, nearly all
untranslated, most of them scarce or almost unprocurable, and many not
even printed, make up the literature to be searched out. And a few
points of decipherment won and safely fixed by the researchers, from
Brasseur, de Rosny, Pousse, Brinton and others a generation ago, to
Messrs. Bowditch, Seler, Goodman and a few others of today, are all we
have--standing out in a wilderness of guesses by many writers, needless
of naming.

Of course the prime and absolute necessity of such a study is true
facsimiles; but the task of using even these, taken as they must be from
much defaced inscriptions and manuscripts, is too obvious for comment.
So from the very first of my studies I began to cherish thoughts of the
day when Maya could be printed with type, and classified indexes to the
glyphs at hand. From one point of view such facilities can only be
expected to come _after_ decipherment; from another, in absence of
bilingual keys, they are a necessity _before_ that can be attained. So
far as his work covers, a great deal has been done in this line by Mr.
A. P. Maudslay in the field of the inscriptions.

At the very outset therefore I must enter acknowledgment of the
assistance that I owe to the courtesy at that