not possible at that time to know that our manuscript belongs to the former.

“After Götze, the first to mention our codex is C. A. Böttiger, in his Ideas on Archæology (Dresden, 1811, pp. 20, 21), without, however, saying anything that we did not already know from Götze. Still Böttiger rendered great and twofold service: first, as we shall see presently, because through him Alexander von Humboldt obtained some notice of the manuscript, and, second, because Böttiger’s note, as he himself explains in the Dresden Anzeiger, No. 133, p. 5, 1832, induced Lord Kingsborough to have the manuscript copied in Dresden.

“We now come to A. von Humboldt. His Views of the Cordilleras and the Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of America bears on the title page the year 1810, which certainly means only the year in which the printing was begun, the preface being dated 1813. To this work, which gave a mighty impulse to the study of Central American languages and literatures, belongs the Atlas pittoresque, and in this are found, on page 45, the reproductions of five pages of our manuscript. They are Nos. 47, 48, 50, 51, and 52 of Lord Kingsborough. In the volume of text belonging to this atlas Humboldt discusses our manuscript on pp. 266, 267. When he began his work he knew nothing as yet of the existence of the manuscript. It was brought to his knowledge by Böttiger, whose above named work he cites. Here we learn for the first time that the material of the manuscript consists of the plant metl (Agave Mexicana,) like other manuscripts that Humboldt had brought from New Spain. Furthermore, he correctly states the length of leaf as 0.295 and the breadth 0.085 meter. On the other hand, he commits two mistakes in saying that there are 40 leaves and that the whole folded table forming the codex has a length of almost 6 meters, for there are only 39 leaves and the length in question is only 3.5 meters, as calculation will approximately show, because the leaves are written on both sides. Humboldt’s other remarks do not immediately concern our problem.

“In 1822 Fr. Ad. Ebert, then secretary and later head librarian, published his History and Description of the Royal Public Library at Dresden. Here we find, as well in the history (p. 66) as in the description (p. 161), some data concerning this ‘treasure of highest value,’ which indeed contain nothing new, but which certainly contributed to spread the knowledge of the subject among wider circles. We may remark right here that H. L. Fleischer, in his Catalogue of Oriental Manuscript Codices in the Royal Library of Dresden, p. 75, Leipzig, 1831, 4^o, makes but brief mention of our codex, as ‘a Mexican book of wood, illustrated with pictures, which awaits its Œdipus;’ whereupon he cites the writing of Böttiger. The signature of the manuscript here noted, E 451, is the one still in use.

“Between the above mentioned notices by Ebert and Fleischer falls the first and so far the only complete reproduction of the manuscript. Probably in 1826, there appeared at Dresden the Italian Augustino Aglio, a master of the art of making fac similes by means of tracing through transparent substances. He visited the European libraries, very probably even at that time under orders from Lord Kingsborough, to copy scattered manuscripts and pictures from Mexico or seemingly from Mexico.

“Now there arises the question, all important for interpretation, In which shape did the manuscript lie before Aglio? Was it a strip only 3.5 meters in length or did it consist of several pieces?

“To render clear the answer which we proceed to give, it is first necessary to remark that of the 39 leaves of the codex 35 are written on both sides and 4 on one side only, so that we can speak only of 74 pages of manuscript, not of 78. These 74 pages we shall in the following always designate by the numbers which they bear in Lord Kingsborough, and it is advisable to abide by these numbers, for the sake of avoiding all error, until the manuscript can be read with perfect certainty; the 4 empty pages I shall designate with 0 when there is need of mentioning them expressly.

“Furthermore it is necessary to state which of these pages so numbered belong together in such way that they are the front and back of the same leaf. This condition is as follows: One leaf is formed of pages 1 45, 2 44, 3 43, 4 42, 5 41, 6 40, 7 39, 8 38, 9 37, 10 36, 11 35, 12 34, 13 33, 14 32, 15 31, 16 30, 17 29, 18 0, 19 0, 20 0, 21 28, 22 27, 23 26, 24 25, 46 74, 47 73, 48 72, 49 71, 50 70, 51 69, 52 68, 53 67, 54 66, 55 65, 56 64, 57 63, 58 62, 59 61, 60 0. [That is to say, each pair of this series forms one leaf, one page on one side and the other on the reverse side of the leaf.]

“But now we are justified in the assumption, which at least is very probable, that neither did Aglio change arbitrarily the order of the original, nor Lord Kingsborough the order of Aglio. Consequently Aglio must already have had the manuscript before him in two pieces, be it that the thin pellicles by which the single leaves are connected were loosened in one place or that the whole was separated only then in order not to be obliged to manipulate the whole unwieldy strip in the operation of copying. A third possibility, to which we shall presently return, is that of assuming two separate pieces from the beginning; in this case Götze and the others must be supposed to have seen it in this condition, but to have omitted the mention of the circumstance, believing that the original unity had been destroyed by tearing.

“Of the two pieces one must have comprised 24, the other 15 leaves. But Aglio copied each of the two pieces in such way as to trace first the whole of one side and then the other of the entire piece, always progressing from left to right, in European style. Therefore Aglio’s model was as follows:

“In considering this, our attention is attracted by the position of the four blank pages, three of which are together, the fourth alone. It might be expected that the separate blank page began or concluded the second piece and was purposely left blank, because in the folding of the whole it would have lain outside and thus been exposed to injury; the other three would be expected at the end of the first piece. The former, as is easily seen, was quite possible, but the latter was not, unless we assume that even at the time Aglio took his copy the original order had been entirely disturbed by cutting and stitching together again. The four blank pages show no trace of ever having contained writing; the red brown spots which appear on them are to be found also on the sides that contain writing. Perhaps, therefore, those three continuous pages indicate a section in the representation; perhaps it was intended to fill them later on; in a similar way also page three has been left unfinished, because the lower half was only begun by the writer.

“I do not wish to conceal my view that the two pieces which Aglio found were separated from the beginning; that they belong even to two different manuscripts, though written in the same form; but, since it is human to err, I will here and there follow custom in the succeeding pages in speaking of one codex.

“My conviction rests especially on the fact that the writer of manuscript A (pp. 1-45) endeavors to