Ixxviii 



Note K. Page liii. 



Those who feel an interest in the subject will not fail to recur to Mr. Pickering's 

 beautiful philosophical essay On the Adoption of a Uniform Orthography for the 

 Indian Languages of North America, contained in the fourth volume of the Me- 

 moirs of the American Academy. Its perusal, indeed, would in most minds create 

 an interest, if one is not already felt. 



Professor Robinson, in his Biblical Researches in Palestine, &c. (Vol. I., p. x.), 

 upon stating that the Syrian mission at Jerusalem had adopted " the system pro- 

 posed by Mr. Pickering for the Indian languages," observes : — " Two motives led 

 to a preference of this system ; first, its own intrinsic merits, and facility of adapta- 

 tion ; and secondly, the fact, that it was already extensively in use throughout 

 Europe and the United States, in writing the aboriginal names in North America 

 and the South Sea islands ; so that, by thus adopting it for the Oriental languages, a 

 uniformity of orthography would be secured among the missions, and also in the 

 publications of the American Board." 



After referring to the " Essay, &c., by John Pickering," Professor Robinson 

 adds : — " The Indian languages of North America and of the islands of the Pa- 

 cific have mostly been reduced to writing according to this simple system." 



The following is a list of the principal languages which have been reduced to 

 writing, on the principles of Mr. Pickering's system, by missionaries of the Ameri- 

 can Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and in which books have actu- 

 ally been printed : — the Greybo and Gaboon, in Africa ; the Hawaiian, Sandwich 

 Islands ; the Choctaw, Creek, Osage, Pawnee, Seneca, Abenaquis, Ojibwa, Otta- 

 wa, Sioux, and Nez Perces, North America. 



Note L. Page Iv. 



Mr. Pickering, in his biographical notice of Mr. Du Ponceau, thus describes the 

 new views presented in his Dissertation on the Nature and Character of the Chi- 

 nese System of Writing. " He published a few years ago a work unfolding new 

 views of the remarkable language of China, which has been long enveloped in 



