XXXIV KEPOKT OF THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. 



t"' it ni;a' be classed with the Kwapa and Hidatsa. The infor- 

 mation now gained permits a tabuhir comparison of the Biloxi 

 with the Hidatsa, Winnebago, Katalja, and Tntehi, those five 

 being regarded as the archaic hmgnages of the Siouan family. 



WORK OF MR ALBERT S. GATSCHET 



Mr Albert S. Gatschet, having met with little success in his 

 previous attempt, in 1884, to study the Wichita language in 

 the field, continued to watch for better opportunities. In 

 1892 he met twelve young men of that tribe in the Educa 

 tiiMial Home (branch of the Lincoln Institute) at Philadelphia, 

 and selected four of the brightest of their number, who seemed 

 to be the most promising through their advanced knowledge 

 of English. With their help he gathered about three thousand 

 terms of Wichita, which is a Caddoan dialect, also a large 

 number of paradigms and sentences, and a few mythologic 

 texts. A thorough interchangeability of the consonants makes 

 the study peculiarly difficult. 



Maria Antonia, a young Costa Rica woman residing in Phil- 

 adelphia, was questioned concerning what she remembered of 

 her native tongue, the Guatuso. About one hundred and 

 twenty vocables were recorded as the result of the inquiry. 

 Mr Gatschet's field work extended from the beginning of 

 March to the beginning of June, 1892. 



OFFICE RESEARCHES 



The Director devoted some time to the revision and correc- 

 tion of a repoi't on the "Indian Linguistic Families of America 

 North of Mexico," as it passed through the press. In this work 

 he was efficiently aided during the earlier part of the year by 

 Mr H. W. Hensliaw. Although not voluminous, this document 

 comprises, in specialized form, one of the classes of data which 

 the Bureau has been engaged in collecting since its institu- 

 tion; while a part of the information was obtained from both 

 the earlier and the current literature of the subject, as well as 

 from the voluminous correspondence of the Bureau. Although 

 the copy was prepared with care, it was found desirable to reex- 



