The Place of the Indian Language^ etc. 179 



intermediate dialects, we would be able, perhaps, to give a com- 

 plete account for tlie great dissimilarity of Indian languages. 

 For tbe present the question of their mutual relation and pos- 

 sible transmutation from a common prototype will best be 

 cleared up by a careful systematic study of the actually exist- 

 ing dialects. 



Then followed a critical account of what had been accom- 

 plished in this field by eminent scholars, e. g. Gallatin, G, 

 Gibbs, E. G. Squier, Lewis H. Morgan, Dr. Brinton, J. Shea, 

 Dr. J. H. Trumbull and others ; the materials and theories of 

 Duponceau, Heckewelder, Schoolcraft, etc. are worthless. 



Besides the importance of the Indian languages in an eth- 

 nological view, the possibility of an approach through them 

 to the great problem of the origin of language was pointed 

 out. 



Mr. F. showed the duty of the Academy towards assisting 

 to secure from destruction the languages of the Indians of 

 America and to facilitate the work of the linguistic scholar 

 by collecting materials, as books, etc. In collecting materials 

 special attention should be paid to those tribes (about 26), 

 which, since our first knowledge of them (a. 1670), lived within 

 or passed through the State of Wisconsin. Attention was 

 called to Col. George Gibbs' " Instructions for research rela- 

 tive to the Ethnology and Philology of America " * and to 

 the hints given by Hon. J. H. Trumbull in a paper " On the 

 true method of studying the American Languages," read 

 before the American Philological Association, at Poughkeep- 

 sie, 1869. t 



There are other monuments, besides languages, which claim 

 our attention in the elucidation of the ethnological problems 

 involved in the past history of America, — monuments left by 

 a people, whose very name has vanished. " Mound-Build- 

 ers" is a conventional name. Geology, and the extreme 



* Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, (Vol. \ii., Art. xi.) 



tThis valuable paper has been published since in the "Transactions of the American 

 Philol. Association," (Vol. I, Art. iv.) 



