Publishing.
As to publication, if any publisher will undertake to issue a work of research at his own risk, well and good. If the author gets a gradually increasing royalty after the first 100 copies, that is as much as can be expected from this class of literature. But in no case have any profit-sharing agreement. Usually such a work will have to be issued at the author’s risk, and a few of the pitfalls of such arrangements may be noted. Let the manuscript really be in final condition, down to every stop, before it goes to the printer; consider the details of headlines, paragraphing, insertion of illustrations, arrangements of any tables or lists, (counting the letters), and in short leave nothing undefined. Have an agreement with the printer for terms, including an average of, say, two author’s alterations in every page, none to alter the length of any page: this allows for inevitable small improvements, without leaving an entire uncertainty in the charges. Correct the proofs in red for the author’s alterations, in black for the printer’s errors. If alterations exceed the allowance, reckon on paying for the resetting of the worst pages, so as to bring the average to the allowance on the rest. Beside the contract for printing and binding, have a contract with the lithographer, another with the collotyper, and another with the bookseller, for his terms of commission on sales. Thus the author knows exactly where he is, and no unpleasantness can arise from unexpected charges.
After publication, the binder and plate-printer should be asked for any blocks used; and to send up any “overs” or spoilt plates; as such are often valuable afterwards to cut up for special uses, and may save spoiling copies of the book. All photographs and drawings supplied to the plate- or block-maker should also be asked for if not returned at once.
CHAPTER XI
SYSTEMATIC ARCHAEOLOGY
Systems of Work.
A science can hardly be said to exist until it has a developed system of work, and its possibilities of value for teaching purposes depend entirely on the organization of its methods. Geology was a chaos before the generalisation of the successive order of the strata, and the method of the determination of a stratum by its fossils, gave the subject a working system. Astronomy was a maze until the Newtonian laws produced methods of analysis. Chemistry could not be said to have any methods until the use of the balance and the theory of atomic combination made possible the last century of development. So far, archaeology cannot be said to have systematised any working methods except those of artistic comparison and of epigraphy, and these can only cover a small part of the space and time which need to be studied.
Two general modes of work, however, have been begun, beside that of artistic comparison; and it only needs that they should be fully carried out in order to produce a thoroughly systematic archaeology. These methods are (1) the complete definition of facts by means of a corpus of all known varieties of objects, in terms of which every object can be defined; and (2) the arrangement of material in its order of development by statistical methods and comparison, which bring out the original sequence of construction. These two methods of work may prove to be, for archaeology, what the balance and atomic theory have been for chemistry,—the necessary foundation for systematic knowledge and exact theory.
Need of a corpus.
The collection of known objects in a corpus was well done by the early systematisers, especially Montfaucon; and though his work is nearly two centuries old, it has not yet been superseded by better productions in every department. Since that appeared, the mass of new material which has been collected, especially in the last fifty years, cannot be mastered by one man, if he is ever to find time for original work; and the whole subject is near coming to a standstill owing to the dead weight of preparations which are required before going further. Until a generation of systematisers shall arise, archaeology can scarcely progress without continual waste of material and loss by duplication of work. Moreover, there is no general reference work, and no notation efficient for recording new discoveries.