206 PKOCEEDINGS OF THE EEGENTS. 



December 26, 1862. 



I owe you an apology for my omission to comply with your request that I 

 should send you an account of what I am doing. It is, in brief, this : 



I propose to give a connected series of vocabularies of all the known Indian 

 languages west of the Rocky mountains, deriving from them a classification of 

 the various tribes into families, and upon this basis to form an ethnological map 

 of that part of the country. In addition to this, I propose to give a memoir ■ 

 upon the character, customs, &c, of those tribes with which I have been in 

 direct communication, more especially as regards their habits of thinking, 

 mythology, &c, and to include or append sub-memoirs by other persons upon 

 particular districts out of my own range, and a resume of the statistics of popu- 

 lation at various periods so far as known. Of course the various authorities 

 will be referred to, so as to give the bibliography, history, &c, of each section. 



I have limited the above mentioned to the country west of the Rocky mount- 

 ains, because I am satisfied that it is all that I can accomplish within a reason- 

 able time, and that the labors of several investigators are required for an 

 exhaustive discussion of what has already been collected in various parts of the 

 continent. In a former letter I took the liberty of suggesting the allotment of 

 other parts of this work to several gentlemen who have pursued separate exam- 

 nations ; such as Mr. Squier for Central America ; Mr. Bartlett for Texas, New 

 Mexico, and Arizona ; Mr. Shea for the Atlantic section, except Georgia and 

 Florida, which should fall to Mr. Buckingham Smith ; and Mr. B. R. Ross, of the 

 Hudson's Bay Company, for British America, except the northwest coast, which 

 would come within my own field. Mr. Smith suggests El Exmo. Sefior Don 

 Fernando Ramirez, of Mexico, as the proper man to give the Mexican part, and 

 thinks that he would willingly undertake it. It appears to me that the calling 

 in assistance from Canadian and Mexican sources would not only add value to 

 tbe contributions, but be a matter of policy as regards the Institution itself, 

 making it a North American centre, instead of one confined to the United 

 States alone. I need not say that the value of the ethnological series which 

 you may publish will be greatly enhanced by the fact that each contribution is 

 a specialty. It would, moreover, give the opportunity to make each paper 

 exhaustive within its own region ; Seiior Ramirez, for example, giving the 

 literary history of the Mexican tribes, as well as their philology and ethnology. 



Mr. Ross's vocabularies, together with Mr. Kennicott's, are of the utmost 

 importance in furnishing materials for comparison between the northern Che- 

 pewyan languages and the southern branches, which extend into New Mexico 

 and Chihuahua. His notes are carefully prepared and well written. If you 

 deem it desirable, I will forward them for your examination. 



GEORGE GIBBS. 



January 20, 1863. 



I herewith enclose a memorandum of what is doing in the way of ethnology, 

 so far as I am informed. 



Mr. Shea has two more numbers of his series out, copies of which will imme- 

 diately be sent you. One of them is the vocabulary of the San Antonio mission 

 Indians, tbe one which Mr. Taylor denominates " Sextapay," but the correctness 

 of which title is questionable. Mr. Shea has edited this with great care, re- 

 arranging the whole, as the manuscript was in a confused state. I beg to refer 

 you to his preface, as also to the appeal at the end of the work. The other is 

 Mr. Smith's Nevome. 



The Sextapay, or San Antonio, is one of the numbers due on your contribu- 

 tion for 1861. Its publication has been delayed by the labor incident to putting 

 it in presentable form, and by the necessity of casting some special type. This r ' 



