Circumstances over which the Publishers of the Official Descriptive andIllustrated Catalogue had no control rendered necessary the publication ofthat work before the close of the Exhibition. In accomplishing this it wasfound to he impossible to include in the first edition several very important andvaluable illustrations then in the hands of the engraver. It has thereforeappeared desirable to publish these in a Supplementary Volume ; and, in orderto present as complete a record of the event as possible, both in its history, pro-gress, and final accomplishment, to combine with them the Ileports of theHoyal Commissioners.

A further extension of the Catalogue appeared desirable for other reasons.Applications were received from several of the leading manufacturers and con-tributors whose woi'ks were among the most distinguished and successful, in-cluding some of the recipients of Council and Prize Medals who expressed theirearnest desire that the objects exhibited by them should bo represented, but who,from various circumstances, laid previously overlooked the importance of havingthem engraved and inserted in the Official Catalogues. Certain omissions of thenames of contributors in the Indian Department, whose valuable collections hadbeen merged into those of other contributors, required to ho rectified. Advantagehas therefore been taken of the publication of the Supplementary Volume to cor-rect the descriptions, and place in the position to which they were entitled, theaccounts of objects which aided so materially in adding alike to the splendour ofthe Exhibition and in extending our knowledge of the capabilities of India . Ihedetailed lists of contributions of his Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad and ol hisMinister, together with those of the Commissioners of Mysore and Cochin, arepreceded by much useful information as to the objects forming the collections,and the localities whence they were procured, and which are now for the first timepublished.

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