Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/13

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PREFACE.
v

edition is that the two volumes now published shall contain a description of all the ancient styles of architecture known to exist either in the Old or New World, except India.

In the first edition the Indian styles occupied about 300 pages, and were illustrated by 200 woodcuts. In the present one it is proposed to double the extent of the text and to add such further illustrations as may be found requisite fully to illustrate the subject. When this is done it will form a separate volume, either the third of the general History of Architecture or a complete and independent work by itself, and sold separately. If nothing unforeseen occurs to prevent it, it is expected that the work will be published before the end of next year (1875).

The History of the Modern Styles of Architecture, published last year, will then form the fourth and concluding volume of the work, or may be considered as a complete and independent treatise, and, like the volume containing the History of Indian Architecture, will be sold separately.

As stated in the preface to the first edition, it was orginally intended that chapters should be added on what were then known as Celtic or Druidical remains. When, however, the subject came to be carefully looked into for that purpose, it was found that the whole was such a confused mass of conflicting theories and dreams, that no facts or dates were so established that they could be treated as historical. The consequence was that the materials collected for the purpose were, in 1872, published in a separate volume, entitled "Rude Stone Monuments," in the form rather of an argument than of a history.

As was to be expected, a work of that nature, and which attacked the established faith in the Druids, has been exposed to a considerable amount of hostile criticism, but nothing has yet appeared that at all touches the marrow of the question or invalidates any of the more important conclusions therein arrived at. On the other hand, everything that has since come to light has tended to confirm them in a most satisfactory manner. Colonel Brunon's researches, for instance, at and around the Madras'en, in Algeria, have proved that the tumuli in that cemetery belong to Roman times.[1] In India sculptured and inscribed dolmens have been dug up and photographed, so that their age is no


  1. "Memoire sur les Fouilles executé au Madras'en," Constantine, 1873.