102 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 



sphere of language and race. For the purpose of testing these questions 

 thoroughly, the following stocks have been selected: Algonquian, 

 Athapascan, Eskimauan, Iroquoian, Kiowan, Koluschan, Muskhogean, 

 Piman, Shoshonean, Siouan, and Yunian, in order to emphasize ori- 

 ginal influences as affecting activities regardless of stock. 



Southeastern Alaska and British Columbia were chosen as one region, 

 northern Colorado, Oregon, and Washington as another, southern Cal- 

 ifornia and parts adjacent as a third region, and the Pueblo country as 

 a fourth. 



The Algonquian family formerly inhabited the southern and eastern 

 drainage of Hudson Pay. Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, the Atlantic 

 slope of the United States as far south as the thirty-fifth parallel, the 

 regions around lakes Michigan, Hurou, and Superior, and almost the 

 entire drainage of the Ohio River. This would give an excellent op- 

 portunity of studying the effect of twenty Ave degrees of latitude and 

 every variety of elevation, access to inland and salt waters, abundance 

 or scarcity of various animal and vegetable productions. The question 

 then in this case would be to find out how far uniformity of activities 

 had been secured over this wide and varied area by the possession of 

 a common language. 



The Iroquoian stock occupied the region around lakes Erie and On- 

 tario, and the upper St. Lawrence River. They were also in possession 

 of the Susquehanna drainage, the mountainous region of Tennessee, 

 Kentucky. Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama, with two 

 small grants on the Atlantic coast, one in southern Virginia, the other 

 in eastern North Carolina. 



The territory of the Muskhogean stock was bounded on the west by 

 the Mississippi River, north by the Tennessee River and Cherokee 

 Country? south by the Gulf of Mexico, east by the Atlantic Ocean. 

 This stock was early visited by Spanish, French, and English explorers, 

 and, on account of the advanced civilization of its tribes, has been 

 looked upon as furnishing the best explanation of the mode of life among 

 the Mound Builders. 



The Siouan stock may be studied with advantage, on account of its 

 restriction to the country of the buffalo, extending along the Missis- 

 sippi (and particularly the Missouri), on the plains of the great West, 

 reaching as far north as Saskatchewan River and as far south as the 

 city of Natchez. A narrow strait across the State of Wisconsin, extend- 

 ing to Lake Michigan, was occupied by this stock, and some of the 

 tribes are known to have lived in the mountains of Virginia and North 

 Carolina, above the falls of the rivers running into the Atlantic Ocean. 

 The Biloxis of Louisiana belong also to this stock. 



Perhaps the most interesting of all the stocks, as regards geographic 

 distribution and the relationship between tribal organization, language, 

 and activities, is the Athapascan, occupying the drainage of the Yukon 

 River, in Alaska, and the Mackenzie River, in Canada, and extending 



