374 Mr. Pickering on Rasles’ Abnaki Dictionary. 
cal Society.” * To that Memoir, in which will be found all the 
most material facts and authorities in relation to his eventful his- 
tory, I beg leave to refer for more particular information on that 
subject. 
So copious a Dictionary of an aboriginal American dialect, 
written by a man of acknowledged talents and learning, who 
possessed an extraordinary facility in the acquisition of languages,t 
and had resided upwards of thirty years among the natives, is, as I 
have already remarked, one of the most important memorials in 
the history of the North American Languages. 
The learned will now be in possession of authentic historical 
documents, of different periods of time, in relation to the most 
important and widely spread native language on the Atlantic side 
of America, from Virginia to Nova Scotia and Canada, — an 
extent comprehending a large part of North America. The do- 
cuments, to which I allude, are, the works of the Rev. Mr. Zeis- 
berger, and the Rev. Mr. Heckewelder, for the southern portion 
of that tract of country; the Bible, Grammar, and other works 
of Eliot and Cotton, for the Massachusetts, or middle region ; and 
the present Dictionary of Father Rasles for the northern part. 
It is not my intention, at this time, to enter upon a consid- 
eration of the use which may be made of this collection of phi- 
lological materials. ‘The object of this communication is merely 
to give some account of the present Dictionary, and of the dialect 
preserved in it; together with a few very general comparative 
views of kindred dialects. But as these objects involve details not 
necessarily connected with each other, I have reserved them for 
the Supplementary Notes and Observations, which will be found 
at the end of the Dictionary, and to which the reader is referred. 
* Massachusetts Historical Collections, Vol. VIII. p. 250; Second Series. 
+ Lettres Edifiantes, Vol. XVII. p. 333. 
