You say 1.9MB, the Gutenberg page says 1.8MB, and the download itself is only 1.18MB thanks to gzip. The main difference is that the Gutenberg PDF is a transcribed, cleaned-up version.
As much as this probably makes me sound like an audiophile, I actually prefer the raw scans over what may essentially be a reprint. They show all the blemishes, unofficial additions, and other marks that make the book look more "real" and give it character.
In this instance, the raw scan has a picture of the cover, as well as an interesting note handwritten near the beginning: "Property of Edward M Sumner" with an address. IMHO these sorts of historical artifacts are worth preserving too. I've come across scans with random notes, bookmark fragments, and newspaper clippings included, and it's always fun to ponder how they got there. (Who is this person and how did he get the book? Is he the one who scanned it? Etc.)
This is why I love used books. My copy of Schopenhauer's collected essays has gone through 4 owners since 1914, all 4 of whom have signed and dated the front cover, all of 4 of whom have marked and underlined at different spots (including, now, myself). My copy of Riverside Chaucer went through two students before me. And they all pick up their own unique scents along the way (my girlfriend jokes that I only buy books to smell them).
Just a side note, off topic: I was that king off person who had a shelf in my house with 300 printed books (and some more stored in boxes in the basement).. it was always a pain when I had to move to a new apartment!
After the e-books and pdfs came by we got a lot of flexibility .. now it's easy to have 3000 volumes in the hard disk. You can literally carry a library with you..
I ended up giving away most of them, apart if some classics (e.g. The art of computer programming from Knuth, Operating Systems, from Tanenbaum, and some other classics for image processing..)
The only thing I miss very much is that I loved the feeling of picking up one at random and expend a couple of hours ... I just can not have the same feeling with e-books.. :(
As much as this probably makes me sound like an audiophile, I actually prefer the raw scans over what may essentially be a reprint. They show all the blemishes, unofficial additions, and other marks that make the book look more "real" and give it character.
In this instance, the raw scan has a picture of the cover, as well as an interesting note handwritten near the beginning: "Property of Edward M Sumner" with an address. IMHO these sorts of historical artifacts are worth preserving too. I've come across scans with random notes, bookmark fragments, and newspaper clippings included, and it's always fun to ponder how they got there. (Who is this person and how did he get the book? Is he the one who scanned it? Etc.)