Nevertheless, in spite of all defects, I believe this sketch to be such
a record as my father would himself have approved, and I know also that he
would have chosen my hand to write it.

In conclusion, I may note that the first edition of this work was
dedicated to that very noble lady, the Queen (then Crown Princess)
Margherita of Italy. In the second edition the Dedication was reproduced
within brackets (as also the original preface), but not renewed. That
precedent is again followed.

I have, therefore, felt at liberty to associate the present edition of my
father's work with the Name MURCHISON, which for more than a generation
was the name most generally representative of British Science in Foreign
Lands, as of Foreign Science in Britain.

A. F. YULE.




PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION


Little did I think, some thirty years ago, when I received a copy of the
first edition of this grand work, that I should be one day entrusted with
the difficult but glorious task of supervising the third edition. When the
first edition of the _Book of Ser Marco Polo_ reached "Far Cathay," it
created quite a stir in the small circle of the learned foreigners, who
then resided there, and became a starting-point for many researches, of
which the results have been made use of partly in the second edition, and