Missing or invisible punctuation has been silently supplied, as have missing umlauts and line-end hyphens. Errors of this type were assumed to be mechanical, introduced either in printing or scanning.
Hyphenization of some words was inconsistent: zigzag and zig-zag, semicircular and semi-circular, staircase and stair-case. The plural of “portico” is regularly “porticos”, rarely “porticoes”. Both occurrences of “mantelpiece” are at line-break; the hyphen was omitted based on usage in the 8th edition.
Alphabetization in the Index is as printed.
The architect Robert Adam is consistently called “Adams”; the error was corrected in the 8th edition. The name form “Michael Angelo” is standard for the time.
Columbia College changed its name to Columbia University in 1896, presumably after the book’s original preface (dated January 20, 1896) was written.
The French palace is variously Luxembourg and Luxemburg.
Spelling of place names was unchanged except when there was an unambiguous error.
The form “Herculanum” (for Herculanum) was used consistently. The English city is Peterboro’ (with apostrophe) in its first few appearances, and then changes to Peterborough for the remainder of the book. The Italian city was conventionally spelled “Sienna” (with two n’s) in English.
Many names, especially non-European ones, differ significantly from their modern form. Some of the following are conjectural.
| Ipsamboul | Abu Simbel |
| Bozrah | probably modern Bouseira, Jordan (not “Bosrah”, modern Basra) |
| Tope | the form “stupa” is more common |
| Indian desert | Thar desert |
| Baillur | Belur |
| Chillambaram | probably Chidambaram; the author’s sources seem to have had trouble with “l” in South Indian names |
| Conjeveram | Kanchipuram |
Futtehpore Sikhri |
Fatehpur Sikri |
| Hullabid | Halebid |
| Jaunpore | Janpur |
| Jugganat | the name of the deity is Jagannath; the English name-form led to the word “juggernaut” |
| Kantonnuggur | Kantanagar |
| Oudeypore | the author seems not to have realized that this is the same place as Udaipur, cited with that spelling in the same paragraph |
| Scinde | Sind |
| Shepree or Sheepree | could not be identified. The author’s source is probably James Ferguson, who describes it as “near Gualior” (Gwalior) |
| Tanjore | Thanjavur |
| Worangul | Varangal |
Nakhon Wat |
better known as Angkor Wat |