386 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
seems futile enough, as in fact it proved; but it is probable 
that no prescription would have availed, under the 
increasing burden of his public duties. 
In 1871 the late George Gibbs,’ recently returned from 
the Pacific coast, and an enthusiastic collector of Indian 
relics and vocabularies, submitted to Professor Baird a 
plan for a systematic study of the aborigines of North 
America, whose languages, culture and tribal grouping 
were under the pressure of civilization in great danger 
of being permanently lost to science. The early death 
of Gibbs prevented the realization of his scheme. 
The Smithsonian Institution at a very early period 
in its existence recognized the importance of studies of 
the ethnology of the native tribes of America. One of 
its earliest collaborators was Professor William W. Turner, 
devoted to linguistic research, whose plan for collecting 
and preserving data in relation to the Indian languages 
has hardly been departed from in later times. One of 
the earliest volumes of the “‘ Contributions to Knowledge” 
printed by the Institution was the classical memoir on 
the so-called “‘Moundbuilders” of the Mississippi valley 
by Squier and Davis.‘ ‘The various exploring expeditions 
made in the Government interest were instructed to 
include ethnological material in their collections, and the 
3George Gibbs, born July 17, 1815, at Sunswick, Long Island, 
New York; died at New Haven, April 9, 1873. Ethnologist of the 
Boundary Survey of Northwest America and the Dominion of Canada, 
enthusiastic and lifelong collector of aboriginal American vocabu- 
laries; librarian and promoter of the interests of the New York 
Historical Society, and long a collaborator of the Smithsonian 
Institution in charge of its Indian linguistics. 
4 Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, by E. G. Squier 
and E. H. Davis. Smithsonian Contr. to Knowledge, vol. 1, 1848, 
pp. 346, pl. 48. 4to. 
