The Chronological Table is another feature of the volume to which attention must be called. In the eighth volume of the German edition of the “History,” Professor Graetz introduced a similar table, reciting the succession of events from the Maccabæan struggle to the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal. The present analysis includes the whole of Jewish history up to the year 1873 of this era. It assumes to be nothing more than a summary of the “History of the Jews” by Graetz. As no attempt has been made to indicate whether his conclusions are endorsed by the scholars of our day, it becomes a duty to refer to the vexed question of Biblical chronology. Since the time of Archbishop Ussher (1580-1656)--not to mention the Talmudic _Seder Olam Rabba_--it has been the subject of dispute, which is complicated by the various eras, the Seleucidæan, the Roman, and the Era of the World, in use among the Jews at different times. Even now the most diversified opinions are held by scholars, and no system has met with general acceptance. Graetz discusses the matter exhaustively in Note 19 of Vol. I of the German original of his “History.” His researches led him to oppose the results of the historians Niebuhr, Ewald, and Movers, and of the Assyriologists Brandes, Smith, and Schrader. He inclines to the views of Oppert, who applied the information derived from the Assyrian inscriptions to the vindication of the Biblical chronology nearly as determined by Ussher. Since Graetz wrote his note (1873), almost amounting to a treatise, evidence for the one or the other opinion has been strengthened or invalidated by the more minute and extended study of the monuments, inscriptions, and other records of Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria. The reader interested in the subject is referred to the works of such scholars as Duncker, Oppert, Kamphausen, and Eduard Meyer. Finally, it is hoped, that the four maps accompanying the Index Volume will meet with favor and frequent use. They have been inserted in a pocket and not bound with the book, so that they may be removed readily for reference in connection with any volume the student may be reading. The two maps of Palestine and that of the Semitic World are reproduced, with modifications, from Professor George Adam Smith’s forthcoming Bible Atlas. The one of the Jewish-Mahometan World was made for the Society by Mr. J. G. Bartholomew of the Edinburgh Geographical Institute, the cartographer who drew the other three maps. The maps of the Jewish-Mahometan World and the Semitic World are general reference maps; the two of Palestine represent the political divisions of the land, the one at the time of the Judges, the other at the time of Herod the Great. The Committee expresses the hope that this sixth volume, an epitome of Jewish history, may “manifest its treasures,” “facilitate the knowledge of those who seek it, and invite them to make application thereof.” _March, 1898._ CONTENTS.