In a very few cases the Editor has ventured to correct what seemed to him positive errors.[3] He has not deemed it any part of his duty to discuss the Author’s opinions or to review his conclusions. He has, however, taken such opportunities as suggested themselves, to set Dr. Schliemann’s statements in a clearer light by a few illustrative annotations. Among the rest, the chief passages cited from Homer are quoted in full, with Lord Derby’s translation, and others have been added (out of many more which have been noted), as suggesting remarkable coincidences with the objects found by Dr. Schliemann.
From the manner in which the work was composed, and the great importance attached by Dr. Schliemann to some leading points of his argument, it was inevitable that there should be some repetitions, both in the Memoirs themselves, and between them and the Introduction. These the Editor has rather endeavoured to abridge than completely to remove. To have expunged them from the Memoirs would have deprived these of much of the interest resulting from the discussions which arose out of the discoveries in their first freshness; to have omitted them from the Introduction would have marred the completeness of the Author’s summary of his results. The few repetitions left standing are a fair measure of the importance which the Author assigns to the points thus insisted on. A very few passages have been omitted for reasons that would be evident on a reference to the original; but none of these omissions affect a single point in Dr. Schliemann’s discoveries.
The _measures_, which Dr. Schliemann gives with the minutest care throughout his work, have been preserved and converted from the French metric standard into English measures. This has been done with great care, though in such constant conversion some errors must of course have crept in; and _approximate_ numbers have often been given to avoid the awkwardness of fractions, where _minute_ accuracy seemed needless. In many cases both the French and English measures are given, not only because Dr. Schliemann gives both (as he often does), but for another sufficient reason. A chief key to the significance of the discoveries is found in the _depths_ of the successive _strata_ of remains, which are exhibited in the form of a diagram on page 10. The numbers which express these in _Meters_[4] are so constantly used by Dr. Schliemann, and are so much simpler than the English equivalents, that they have been kept as a sort of “memory key” to the strata of remains. For the like reason, and for simplicity-sake, the depths appended to the Illustrations are given in meters only. The _Table of French and English Measures_ on page 56 will enable the reader to check our conversions and to make his own. The Editor has added an Appendix, explaining briefly the present state of the deeply interesting question concerning the _Inscriptions_ which have been traced on some of the objects found by Dr. Schliemann.