Tile page illustration for Suma de Geographia by Martín Fernandez de Enciso, Sevilla, 1519; Diaz-Alejo, R. y Gil Joaquin, America y el Viejo Mundo, Buenos Aires, 1942 Institute of Texan Cultures, 75-802

The notes to the text, I hope it is not really necessary to point out, are themselves a display, or exhibit, to use Ezra Pound's word, of examples of evidence.

Here, the reader should consider which notes are enlightening or confusing, which seem necessary or unnecessary, which are defensive, pompous, useful, unexpected, and so on, realizing that the criteria for such judgments are in the reader's head and that such standards are among the subjects of this text.

All the notes can be seen as a whole, or printed out, on the combined notes page. The notes are keyed to a general bibliography by the author's last name and, where necessary, by the first words of the title.

The not-so-helpful reference term passim is used only where numerous page references would have had to be cited and the topic is readily traceable in the source index or the reference is quite generally concerned with the topic under discussion, e.g., Chinese history. However tempting, passim is not here intended as an equivalent to "I've forgotten the specific reference" or "read the whole thing like I had to."

---- j.l.d.