li 



lication kindled Mr. Pickering's enthusiasm. Tiiough deeply en- 

 gaged upon his Greek Lexicon, he could not resist the attractions 

 of this new field of labor, so suited to his genius and taste, and 

 in which he might hope to render such important service to science 

 and learning. He stopped not to inquire how profitable the em- 

 ployment might be to himself; it was enough to feel assured that 

 he could labor successfully in extending the boundaries of human 

 knowledge and advancing the improvement of mankind. He 

 immediately wrote for the North American Review an able article 

 upon Mr. Du Ponceau's admirable Report, recommending it in 

 the strongest terms to the attention of the learned. In this article 

 he expressed the hope that " the Dictionary of the dialect of the 

 Norridgewock Indians, composed by Father Rasles," would soon be 

 published ; and he also suggested " the necessity of establishing, 

 by common consent of the learned, a uniform orthography of the 

 spoken languages " of the aborigines of America ; both of which 

 laborious undertakings were left for him to accomplish. In 1820 

 he published in the same Review another ingenious and learned 

 article upon Dr. Jarvis's Discourse on the Religion of the Indian 

 Tribes of North America ; which attracted the particular attention 

 of Baron William Von Humboldt, of Berlin, who thereupon opened 

 an interesting correspondence with Mr. Pickering on the Indian 

 languages, which continued without interruption till the Baron's 

 death, when Mr. Pickering's portion of the correspondence was 

 deposited in the library of the Royal Academy of Berlin.* 



Among the most arduous of Mr. Pickering's incessant labors in 

 this new field of science, and also the least attractive, except from 

 a view of their utility, was the republication of Eliot's Indian 



• Note I, 



