In procuring specimens, the author has acknowledgments to express both to private collectors and to the curators of public institutions. Among the latter may be mentioned General Loring, of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and Mr. H. C. Hutchins, of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in this city, both of whom admitted the author to a close inspection of the collections under their charge, and personally superintended the taking of sketches and photographs. Similar favors were received from the trustees and Dr. M‘Leod, of the Corcoran Art Gallery; from Professor Baird and Mr. Cushing, of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington; and from the officers of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. Mr. Edward Bierstadt of New York, and Mr. T. W. Smillie of Washington, also granted facilities and volunteered courtesies which proved invaluable. Casual reference is made in the following pages to the marks of factories and artists, but after due deliberation it was decided not to make them the subject of special treatment or illustration. Several good manuals are already in the hands of the public, and a book of marks should never take any other form. It is comparatively useless unless easily portable and handy. Then, again, marks are, and always have been, imitated to such an extent that they are not the most trustworthy guides to the parentage of specimens. Collectors who buy pieces for the sake of the mark they bear may be deceived; those who buy for the sake of beauty may occasionally be mistaken; but a cultivated taste can never be deluded into finding beauty in the unbeautiful. The art, and not the mark, should be studied; and the fact that many of the finest and most highly valued specimens--Chinese, Japanese, Persian, Saracenic, Greek, Italian, and many modern wares--have no mark gives additional point to the observation. If the present work should be found defective in certain points, it must be remembered that it could hardly be otherwise, considering its scope and limits. The author will be satisfied if, besides answering its primary purpose, it should increase the interest already awakened in the subject of which it treats, and lead students to appreciate and examine the collections at their command in this country. RIGHT J. J. Y. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION.