Extract from Preface:

Apart from his repute as an artist, William Simpson was an author of some consideration. When sent in 1872 by the Illustrated London News to attend the ceremonies of the Emperor of China's marriage, he undertook to act also as correspondent for the Daily News, and the direct outcome of that arrangement was his volume, Meeting the Sun, published in 1873. And in 1896 he was induced to publish The Buddhist Praying-Wheel, a collection of material, chiefly gathered from his Indian experience, bearing on the symbolism of the wheel and circular movements in custom and religious ritual. But perhaps his most valuable writings were those on Indian archaeology and on primeval religions, contributed to the Transactions of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge of Freemasons, of which he was an ardent member, to the Eoyal Institute of British Architects, the Royal Asiatic, and other societies. His original researches and studies in India made him an authority on these subjects, his sane and unprejudiced habit of mind fitted him peculiarly for such work, and in his chosen fields he must be held to have advanced both the knowledge and the wisdom of mankind.