IV PREFACE. 



skiold, near Bering Strait, for example, contain Sandwich Island 

 words, imported by sailors on w baling vessels, wliich words have come 

 into general use amoDg the Indians of that region. Vocabularies col- 

 lected in Cook's Inlet, Alaska, may be of either the Aleut or Kadiak 

 dialect of the Eskimo or of tribes of radically distinct linguistic stocks. 



The compiler has frequently' found himself in doubt in such cases 

 but has, after careful consideration, concluded that he can best serve 

 the needs of students of the Eskimo by retaining all titles about which 

 any reasouabie doubt exists. Uuder this ruling it is probable that a 

 few titles will be found in the list which should properly be excluded, 

 but it is believed that the number of such entries is small, and that 

 the usefulness of the catalogue will be greater by retaining these few 

 doubtful titles, some of which should properly be excluded, than by 

 excluding more rigorously, and so omitting titles which should be re- 

 tained. 



The greatest deficiency will probably be found in titles relating to 

 the Asiatic Eskimo. Iso special eftbrt has been made to collect such 

 material, and that relating to them which does appear was gathered in- 

 cidentally. 



No opportunity has been lost to take titles at first hand, and there 

 will be found herein a larger percentage of books and manuscripts 

 described de visu, it is thought, than is usual in works of this kind. 



The earliest printed record of the language known to me is the Green- 

 land vocabulary in the two editions of Olearius's Voyage of 1656, 

 The earliest treatise on the language is found in the various editions of 

 Hans Egede's work on Greenland, first printed in 1729 ; the next by 

 Anderson in 1746. Egede's dictionary followed closely, appearing in 

 1750. The earliest text met with is the latter author's Four Gospels, 

 printed at Copenhagen in 1741, though I^Tyerup credits him with a work 

 printed two years earlier. To the younger Egede we are indebted for 

 the first grammar, which appeared at Copenhagen in 1760. 



The first text in the dialect of Labrador of which mention is made 

 herein is the Harmony of the Gospels, printed at Barbime in 1800 (see 

 Nalegapta), the translator of which I do not know. There is no printed 

 grammar of this dialect: but mention will be found under Freitagof a 

 manuscript grammar dated 1839 and under Bourquiu of another as 

 about to be printed. The only dictionary is that of Erdmauu of 1864, 



As to the extreme west, Veniaminoff and Xetzvietoff translated and 

 issued a number of texts between 1840 and 1848; also a dictionary of 

 the Aleut, and a grammatic treatise of the Kadiak and Aleut, in 1846. 

 The only other dictionary of any of the western dialects is that of 

 Buyuitzky, published in 1871. 



The only texts of the Eskimo of the middle stretch of country are 

 those of the Hudson Bay people by the Kev. E. J. Peck. 



