SKETCH OF GEORGE CAT LIN. 409 



After lie returned from his South. American campaigns, Mr. 

 Catlin lived, in Brussels, upon the proceeds of his brush, and 

 there began the preparation of his cartoon collection. 



Mr. Catlin died of an illness contracted from an exposure 

 which he suffered in Washington, in October, 1872. He was 

 removed thence to Jersey City, where his daughters and his 

 brother-in-law, the Hon. Dudley S. Gregory, were living. His 

 collection of pictures now belongs to the Smithsonian Institution, 

 and constitutes the George Catlin Indian Gallery of the United 

 States National Museum. In his paintings he sought to repre- 

 sent the truth, and invented nothing. He regarded the domestic 

 and every-day customs, habits, and manners of the Indians as the 

 essentials to the proper study of their origin and descent, and 

 aimed to reproduce them thoroughly. His principal books were 

 Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the 

 North American Indians; written during eight years of travel 

 among the wildest tribes of Indians in North America, first pub- 

 lished in 1841, and reproduced in several editions, in English and 

 German, with divers variations of title; and Life amongst the 

 Indians, a book for youth, 18G7; also published in French. The 

 list also includes works on the O-kee-pa, a religious ceremony of 

 the Mandans ; catalogues of his gallery ; a pamphlet on breath- 

 ing with the mouth shut, giving the results of experiences and 

 observations acquired during his life among the Indians, 18G5 ; a 

 pamphlet concerning a Steam Raft suggested as a Means of Secu- 

 rity to Human Life on the Ocean, 1850 ; Last Rambles amongst 

 the Indians of the Rocky Mountains and the Andes, 1868 ; The 

 Lifted and Subsided Rocks of America, with their Influence on 

 the Oceanic, Atmospheric, and Land Currents, and the Distribu- 

 tion of Races, 1870 ; a Letter to William Blackman, concerning 

 his life among the aboriginal races of America ; and newspaper, 

 review, and magazine notes and articles. 



He put forward in 1832 a suggestion for forming a large 

 reservation of public lands to be a nation's park, containing man 

 and beast in all the wildness and freshness of their natural 

 beauty, saying that he would want no better monument than the 

 reputation of having been the founder of such an institution. In 

 1845 he published a plan for disengaging and floating quarter- 

 decks on steamers and other vessels for the purpose of saving 

 human lives at sea, and proceeded to take out a patent for it, but 

 found afterward that he had been anticipated. In 1842 he was 

 invited to lecture at the Royal Institution in London, and took 

 advantage of the occasion to introduce a subject on which he 

 had long meditated that of forming a museum of mankind, to 

 contain and perpetuate the looks and manners and history of all 

 the declining and vanishing races of mankind. 



