386 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



seems futile enough, as in fact it proved; but it is probable 

 that no prescription would have availed, under the 

 increasing burden of his public duties. 



In 1871 the late George Gibbs, 3 recently returned from 

 the Pacific coast, and an enthusiastic collector of Indian 

 relics and vocabularies, submitted to Professor Baird a 

 plan for a systematic study of the aborigines of North 

 America, whose languages, culture and tribal grouping 

 were under the pressure of civilization in great danger 

 of being permanently lost to science. The early death 

 of Gibbs prevented the realization of his scheme. 



The Smithsonian Institution at a very early period 

 in its existence recognized the importance of studies of 

 the ethnology of the native tribes of America. One of 

 its earliest collaborators was Professor William W. Turner, 

 devoted to linguistic research, whose plan for collecting 

 and preserving data in relation to the Indian languages 

 has hardly been departed from in later times. One of 

 the earliest volumes of the "Contributions to Knowledge" 

 printed by the Institution was the classical memoir on 

 the so-called "Moundbuilders" of the Mississippi valley 

 by Squier and Davis. 4 The various exploring expeditions 

 made in the Government interest were instructed to 

 include ethnological material in their collections, and the 



3 George Gibbs, born July 17, 1815, at Sunswick, Long Island, 

 New York; died at New Haven, April 9, 1873. Ethnologist of the 

 Boundary Survey of Northwest America and the Dominion of Canada, 

 enthusiastic and lifelong collector of aboriginal American vocabu- 

 laries; librarian and promoter of the interests of the New York 

 Historical Society, and long a collaborator of the Smithsonian 

 Institution in charge of its Indian linguistics. 



4 Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, by E. G. Squier 

 and E. H. Davis. Smithsonian Contr. to Knowledge, vol. i, 1848, 

 pp. 346, pi. 48. 4to. 



