Transcriber’s notes:

Several volunteers have worked on the post-processing of thiscomplex e-book and I acknowledge the efforts of those who preceded mewith respect to correcting spelling and other errors. A limited listof such corrections is appended.The original presentation of the book was not entirely consistent inthe formating of headings, subheadings, etc. and cannot be trulyreplicated for digital reading devices, but the textual content hasbeen faithfully preserved including inconsistent punctuation and otherflaws. The original table of contents, which was located at the end ofthe book, was incomplete and inconsistent with respect to the hierarchyof headings. It has been modified to be of of greater assistanceto the reader and has been repositioned to the more usual locationat the beginning. Some illustrations have been moved nearer to therelevant text. Footnotes have been numbered andcollated as endnotes that follow the comprehensive index. Inthis transcription a black underline indicates a hyperlink to a page,illustration or footnote.

The cover image of the book was created by thetranscriber and is placed in the public domain.