Publisher's Synopsis
From the INTRODUCTION.
The following work, though complete in itself, is but a specimen of a larger work, at one time contemplated by me, which should extend to all the Primitive Chinese Characters, including Clefs and Phonetics, and which may be resumed at some future period, should the demand appear to exist. The consideration of the very small number of persons hitherto interested in Chinese Literature, the great expensiveness of the necessary woodcuts to illustrate my views, and chiefly a predominating interest in other branches of philological investigation on my own part, diverted my attention from the original plan.
What is contained in this little treatise was prepared, some five years ago, in the shape of a paper for the American Ethnological Society, and read -by me, by a special arrangement, for the better exhibition of numerous large charts by which it was illustrated, before the New York Historical Society, in the University Eooms. A report of that reading (Nov. 6th, 1849) appeared in an extra of the New York Tribune, illustrated by woodcuts, accompanied by a highly appreciative editorial notice. In this ephemeral shape, it reached several distinguished scholars in this country and Europe, from whom I have received urgent requests to prosecute the same inquiries more at large, and to consign them to a more permanent form. I have not, however, until now, found the fitting time to do so much as to prepare the present work for the press.
The cause of this pressure upon my attention and time, and of this seeming neglect of a matter not only interesting but valuable, in the estimation of my friends, and in my own, has been a series of investigations, and I may say discoveries, in other branches of science, which I am now bringing so far to a close as to be engaged in their preparation for publication....
