his late Report on Ethnology, in the 'Report of the British Association for'
1847, p. 265.


It would be scarcely right to conclude these remarks without a reference to
the translations that have preceded mine. The translation executed by Mrs.
Sabine is singularly accurate and elegant. The other translation is
remarkable for the opposite qualities, and may therefore be passed over in
silence. The present volumes differ from those of Mrs. Sabine in having all
the foreign measures converted into corresponding English terms, in being
published at considerably less than one third of the price, and in being a
translation of the entire work, for I have not conceived myself justified in
omitting passages, sometimes amounting to pages, simply because they might
be deemed slightly obnoxious to our national prejudices.


p 7
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
-------------------

In the late evening of an active life I offer to the German public a work,
whose undefined image has floated before my mind for almost half a century.
I have frequently looked upon its completion as impracticable, but as often
as I have been disposed to relinquish the undertaking, I have again --
although perhaps imprudently -- resumed the task. This work I now present
to my contemporaries with a diffidence inspired by a just mistrust of my own
powers, while I would willingly forget that writings long expected are
usually received with less indulgence.

Although the outward relations of life, and an irresistible impulse toward