XIV ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 
Many other gentlemen throughout the United States have rendered 
me valuable assistance in this department of investigation. Their labors 
will receive due acknowledgment at the proper time, but I must not fail 
to render my sincere thanks to these gentlemen, who have so cordially 
and efficiently co-operated with me in this work. 
A small volume, entitled “Introduction to the Study of Indian Lan- ~ 
guages,” has been prepared and published. This book is intended for 
distribution among collectors. In its preparation I have been greatly 
assisted by Prof. W. D. Whitney, the distinguished philologist of Yale 
College. To him I am indebted for that part relating to the representa- 
tion of the sounds of Indian languages; a work which could not be 
properly performed by any other than a profound scholar in this branch. 
I complete the statement of the office-work of the past season by men- 
tioning that a tentative classification of the linguistic families of the 
Indians of the United States has been prepared. This has been a work 
of great labor, to which I have devoted much of my own time, and in 
which I have received the assistance of several of the gentlemen above 
mentioned. 
In pursuing these ethnographic investigations it has been the endeavor 
as far as possible to produce results that would be of practical value in 
the administration of Indian affairs, and for this purpose especial atten- 
tion has been paid to vital statistics, to the discovery of linguistic affin- 
ities, the progress made by the Indians toward civilization, and the 
causes and remedies for the inevitable conflict that arises from the spread 
of civilization over a region previously inhabited by savages. I may 
be allowed to express the hope that our labors in this direction will not 
be void of such useful results. 
In 1878 no report of the Survey of the Rocky Mountain 
Region was published, as before its completion the question of 
reorganizing all of the surveys had been raised, but the work 
was continued by the same methods as in previous years. 
The operations of the Bureau of Ethnology during the past 
fiscal year will be briefly described. 
In the plan of organization two methods of operation are 
embraced : 
First. The prosecution of research by the direct employ- 
ment of scholars and specialists ; and 
Second. By inciting and guiding research immediately con- 
ducted by collaborators at work throughout the country. 
It has been the effort of the Bureau to prosecute work in 
the various branches of North American anthropology on a 
systematic plan, so that every important field should be culti- 
vated, limited only by the amount appropriated by Congress. 
