A WORD BOOK AND FACT BOOK

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIX, Issue 13066, 4 March 1903, Page 2

A WORD BOOK AND FACT BOOK

Everyone who buys a copy of “ Tho Century Dictionary and Cycloptudia and Atlas'* through “The Times” offer seeins after a few days to think of it as a work of reference, and hot as a mere lexicon.' Tha directness, the clearness, and the concision of its encyclopedic expositions arc apparent as.soon as one glances at a few of the pages,] and the hook is mum recognised as a Dictionary of Facts, as well its of WoVds. The value of “The Century ” to journalists and men in,public life, is in proportion to the-speed, with which they arc obliged-.to acquire information. So a'writer,or speaker accustomed to intense concentration of thought, will find in its pages ,precisely tho condensed statement of facts which ho needs. - . ; Tho reviews of “The Century ’ in t-uet Press have dwelt with great- emphasis on the value of its lavish quotations, apd this "lighting \ip” of the work is a singularly apt description of their utility. They show,; ns nothing else, could show, how awoi'd IUB into its place in the language. ■ Three hundred thousand quotations make “ Tho Century " the greatest reference hook for quotations, familiar and unfamiliar, ever made. And this great number is - only a fraction of all that have, been used as cnido material out of which to evolve or test tha definitions. These quotations are most efficient aids to definition. Take, for instance, “go.” Seven columns of the largo quarto pages of “Tho Century," amounting to 7000 words, al ' f rom t° P«S CS of a magazine, arc filled with the definitions and illustrative quotations of this word.. Nearly one'hundred and fifty quotations, from tho time of Chaucer to the time of Swinburne, are among tho witnesses to tho many uses of “ go." Tho free prospectus sent' on application. j