Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 February 1894 — HISTORY COSTING MILLIONS. [ARTICLE]

HISTORY COSTING MILLIONS.

The Government In Preparing an Enormous Work on the Rebellion. The biggest literary work ever undertaken in America* is tho military history now being proiuced by the United States government under the title of “War of the . Rebellion. ” It was begun twenty years ago. The whole work will embrace ,120 huge royal octavo volumes of 1,000 page seach and a gigantic atlas, and tho cost will be about $2,500,000. Each separate book in a set is three inches thick and weighs from fifty to sixty ounces and the combined, weight of an entire set will be 520 pounds. The volumes, if set up in a row on a single shelf, will extend a distance of thirty feet. Eleven thousand copies will be printed, so that the edition will comprise 1,320.000 books of 1,000 printed pages, aggregating 1,320,000,000 pages of matter, exclusive of the atlas. Up to this date eighty-nine serial volumes have been published and about $1,800,000 has teen sj ent in all branches of the work, or about $20,000 a volume. The printing and binding alone cost SIO,OOO a volume, while tho previous preparation cf each volumo for tho printers’ hands cost an equal sum.