But, contrary to my expectations, in many there appeared no manner of allusion to Loudoun County.  By this it will be seen that much time that might have been more advantageously employed was necessarily given to this form of fruitless research.

That works of history and geography can be prepared in no other way, no person at all acquainted with the nature of such writings need be told.  “As well might a traveler presume to claim the fee-simple of all the country which he has surveyed, as a historian and geographer expect to preclude those who come after him from making a proper use of his labors.  If the former writers have seen accurately and related faithfully, the latter ought to have the resemblance of declaring the same facts, with that variety only which nature has enstamped upon the distinct elaborations of every individual mind....  As works of this sort become multiplied, voluminous, and detailed, it becomes a duty to literature to abstract, abridge, and give, in synoptical views, the information that is spread through numerous volumes.”

Touching the matter gleaned from other books, I claim the sole merit of being a laborious and faithful compiler.  In some instances, where the thoughts could not be better or more briefly expressed, the words of the original authors may have been used.

Where this has been done I have, whenever possible, made, in my footnotes or text, frank and ample avowal of the sources from which I have obtained the particular information presented.  This has not always been possible for the reason that I could not name, if disposed, all the sources from which I have sought and obtained information.  Many of the references thus secured have undergone a process of sifting and, if I may coin the couplet, confirmatory handling which, at the last, rendered some unrecognizable and their origin untraceable.

The only publication of a strictly local color unearthed during my research was Taylor’s Memoir of Loudoun, a small book, or more properly a pamphlet, of only 29 pages, dealing principally with the County’s geology, geography, and climate.  It was written to accompany the map of Loudoun County, drawn by Yardley Taylor, surveyor; and was published by Thomas Reynolds, of Leesburg, in 1853.

I wish to refer specially to the grateful acknowledgment that is due Arthur Keith’s Geology of the Catoctin Belt and Carter’s and Lyman’s Soil Survey of the Leesburg Area, two Government publications, published respectively by the United States Geological Survey and Department of Agriculture, and containing a fund of useful information relating to the geology, soils, and geography of about two-thirds of the area of Loudoun.  Of course these works have been the sources to which I have chiefly repaired for information relating to the two first-named subjects.  Without them the cost of this publication would have been considerably augmented.  As it is I have been spared the expense and labor that would have attended an enforced personal investigation of the County’s soils and geology.