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Especially in nineteenth-century printed materials, spellings are incoherent and, in some cases, now obsolete, and diacritics are frequently omitted; some documents by German authors are written in faulty Spanish. I have quoted from the original documents or editions at my disposal without regularizing spelling, punctuation, grammar, or diacritics; variants that seemed to interfere with the understanding of the phrase are indicated by a [sic]. References are given parenthetically after their respective quotations or concepts; full citations appear in the appended bibliography. I have used endnotes to give additional or peripheral information, including pointers to related citations not directly relevant to the argument presented. The bibliography is divided into “Sources” and “Critical Literature” according to the ways in which I have used the texts rather than their assumed intrinsic qualities; this means that the same author (but not the same text) may be listed in both sections. Finally, in choosing the illustrations for my book, I have decided to forego the inclusion of modern photographs, maps, or other representations that would seem to offer a modern vantage point of stable knowledge. If this creates a sense of indeterminacy in my readers, it is an intended effect: I hope to render audible the faint echo of the settlers’ desire for the meaning of space.