Map compilation was about two-thirds complete when these agreements were made. It was anticipated at the time that the entire work could be delivered to Aldine by the end of 1972. But the achievements of the summer of 1970 fell far short of expectations, and the input of staff time was significantly reduced with the coming of the new academic year. Particularly serious was the loss of Bajpai, who accepted a teaching position with San Fernando Valley State College in Cali- fornia (now California State University, Northridge), although the loss was par- tially compensated by Schwartzberg's taking sabbatical leave from Minnesota in order to devote his full attention to the Project. Yet, despite Bajpai's return for a month in the winter of 1970–71 and for the full summer of 1971 and Hameed ud-Din's return for portions of the summer, the mapping at the end of that season was still only about five-sixths complete. Termination of USOE funding in Sep- tember 1971 necessitated another sharp staff reduction. Mathur, by chance fol- lowing in Bajpai's footsteps, also accepted an appointment at San Fernando Valley State College, and both the Project's cartographers had to be released.

During the academic year 1971–72 only Ismael, on a three-quarter-time ap- pointment, and Schwartzberg, again teaching a full time course load, were left at Minnesota; and much of Schwartzberg's energy during that academic year, as in several previous years and in years to follow, had to be diverted to raising funds to keep the Project in existence. The return of Bajpai and Mathur to the Project for varying periods in the summers of 1972 and 1973 and in the winter of 1973–74, brought new surges of activity, yet not enough to complete the work. For the en- tire year 1972–73 Schwartzberg was again able to obtain research leave and de- vote his full time to the Project, but there was then no other paid atlas staff. Mrs. Monique E. Schwartzberg helped to fill the breach by commencing work on an unsalaried basis in September 1972, thereafter assisting more or less continu- ously and often full time until early in 1978. Additional help came from Mrs. Nancy Mate, who began several years of intermittent part-time work for the Proj- ect in September 1973. Map compilations were finally completed in the summer of 1974 (when Bajpai returned to the Project for the sixth time since his first departure).

A number of factors contributed to the tardiness in completing the maps. The establishment of Bangladesh and the events leading to it called for new maps and revisions of others, as did the taking of population censuses in the several coun- tries of South Asia in the period from 1971 to 1974. Many maps had to be cor- rected in response to scholarly criticism, or because errors or internal inconsist- encies were discovered by the Project's own staff, or as a result of uncovering new data or having new findings made available through late publications. Still other corrections were necessitated by changes of place names (Sri Lanka, Karnataka, Pune, etc.). Such changes resulted in numerous delays in the work, generally small, but cumulatively significant, both at Minnesota and at the AGS. Most im- portant, however, was the repeated failure to appreciate in advance the complexity of the research many of the maps were to require.

Shortly before the last map compilations were submitted to the AGS for final drafting the Aldine Publishing Company apprised the Project of its wish to with- draw from the publication venture. Since its contract with the University had long since expired, through no fault of the publisher, Aldine's decision was entirely in order and, in the light of rapidly rising costs and the then generally depressed state of the publishing industry, perfectly understandable. Distressing though the deci- sion was, the Project could not quarrel with it. On the contrary, the Project is grateful that Aldine so graciously accepted the loss incurred by its printing, for promotional purposes, thousands of copies of two prototype atlas plates and that Aldine gave the Project so much valuable staff attention and moral support. Fi- nally, Aldine was most helpful in securing an alternative publisher, the University of Chicago Press. In a letter dated 23 September 1974, Chicago indicated its in- tent to undertake publication of the atlas.

As suggested earlier in this narrative, in the execution of many map compila- tions the Project went well beyond what was envisaged in the atlas dummy devel- oped in the summer of 1967. Yet that model of the future work constituted the basis on which the AGS estimate of the cost of final drafting was made and on which funds for the work were allotted. That fact, combined with the addition of certain maps to the original prospectus (e.g., Bangladesh, the censuses of 1971–74) and the marked inflation in the costs of cartographic labor, contributed to the AGS's sustaining a major financial loss on the work and finding itself unable to complete it without substantial supplementary assistance. A generous third grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities was received late in 1972, and a final matching grant from the Endowment and the Ford Foundation was an- nounced in June 1975. Although these awards did enable the completion of the final drafting, they by no means covered the full costs of that work, a large part of which were borne by the AGS. All final map drafts were edited between 1970 and 1975, mainly during visits to the society.

Some time after agreeing to publish the atlas, the University of Chicago Press entered into an agreement with Rand McNally and Company to have that firm print and bind the atlas. The Press generously acceded to the Project's request to have the work printed in four colors rather than the two previously contemplated, and also agreed to choose a significantly larger page size than previously planned. The former decision necessitated the reformulation of many of the printing speci- fications of the atlas and resulted in additional delays in transmitting the work from the AGS to Rand McNally. The maps were delivered between October 1975 and January 1976, and color proofs of all plates were made by Rand McNally. These were forwarded to the Project for editorial scrutiny between December 1975 and June 1976. Substantial corrections to the drafts, shown to be necessary through examination of the proofs, as well as a number of aesthetic improvements, were made by the AGS, Rand McNally, and the cartographic laboratory of the University of Minnesota from September 1976 to December 1977.

Little text was written for the atlas while the maps were being compiled, though many notes for such text were prepared, with varying degrees of care, by the in- dividual map authors. Writing began in earnest late in 1974. Most of the text was composed at Minnesota itself (Bajpai returning for that purpose briefly in 1975 and 1976), but contributions were also received from authors in several other locales. Editing was done at Minnesota. A preliminary draft of the greater part of the text was delivered to the University of Chicago Press in September 1975, and the penultimate draft of the completed text for the body of the atlas was submitted in August 1976. Final editing at Minnesota was carried out later that year, and the final draft was delivered to the Press in December 1976.

JOSEPH E. SCHWARTZBERG