that on many subjects in this book we shall one day find better authenticated and more ancient information, I venture to say, that, as a whole, it will scarcely ever be superseded. It is a standard work in Oriental literature, and has been recognised as such by the East itself, representing in its peculiar line the highest development of Oriental scholarship. Perhaps we shall one day find the literary sources themselves from which Albîrûnî derived his information, and shall be enabled to dispense with his extracts from them. But there are other chapters, e.g. those on the calendars of the ancient inhabitants of Central Asia, regarding which we shall, in all likelihood, never find any more ancient information, because the author had learned the subject from hearsay among a population which was then on the eve of dying out. As the first editor and translator of a book of this kind, I venture to claim the indulgence of the reader. Generations of scholars have toiled to carry the understanding of Herodotus to that point where it is now, and how much is wanting still! The work of generations will be required to do full justice to Albîrûnî. A classical philologist can edit a Greek text in a correct form, even though he may have no complete understanding of the subject-matter in all possible relations. Not so an Arabic philologist. The ambiguity of the Arabic writing —proh dolor!— is the reason why a manuscript expresses only three-quarters of the author's meaning, whilst the editor is compelled to supply the fourth quarter from his own knowledge and discernment. No number in any chronological table can be considered correct, as long as it is not proved by computation to be so, and even in the simplest historical narrative the editor and translator may most lamentably go astray in his interpretation, if there is something wrong with the method of his research.
