OFTHEHTIMANFAMILY. 229 



not easily overcome. We may be able to trace our way with tolerable assurance 

 by means of the indicative landmarks of the common system ; but not with that 

 perfect reliance which the uniform reappearance in nation after nation, thus far, of 

 the same identical forms carried down to minute particulars, was calculated to 

 inspire. On passing from one great stem of the family to another it would be 

 expected to find, in a system so elaborate and complicated, differences more or 

 less great, and deviations from uniformity more or less marked ; for no system can 

 be held indefinitely independent of external influences. This would especially be 

 the case where a people, less numerous than the inhabitants of a small market 

 town, have possessed for ages an independent dialect as well as nationality. We 

 are also to visit the valley of the Columbia, which there are cogent reasons for 

 believing was the seminary of the Ganowanian family, and the initial point of 

 migrations from which successive, though feeble, streams emerged for the peo- 

 pling of both of the American continents ; and which continued to send forth bands 

 of emigrants down to the very epoch of European discovery. If, in point of fact, it 

 was the original seat of the family, the domestic institutions of the modern nations 

 residing in this valley would be expected to be heterogeneous rather than pure ; 

 whilst the separate streams, flowing therefrom at an ancient epoch, and subdividing 

 into many as they spread abroad, would be more likely to possess homogeneous 

 institutions. There are at the present time several stock languages in the valley of 

 the Columbia. They are less open and accessible than those east of the mountains. 

 Notwithstanding the inadequacy of the materials thus far obtained, the traces of the 

 common system are not less certain and decisive upon the Pacific slopes than they 

 have been seen to be on the Atlantic side of the continent ; although the system 

 has been worked out with much less completeness. 



