XXXI BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



tongue. Uufoi'tunately for students, this compilation 

 was not published ; hut on the death of Dr Trunil)ull, in 

 1897, it passed into the custody of the American Anti- 

 quarian Society, at Worcester, Massachusetts. Here it 

 attracted the attention of scholars and publicists, includ- 

 ing Dr Edward Everett Hale; and it was proposed by 

 Dr Hale, with others, to offer the manuscript to the 

 Bureau for publication. Among the scholars interested 

 in this and cognate publications relating to the aborigines 

 was the Honorable Ernest W. Roberts, Representative of 

 the Seventh Massachusetts district in the Congress ; and 

 at his instance authority was granted for resuming the 

 i:)ublication of bulletins by the Bureau. Accordingly, 

 when Dr Hale, early in 1900, lirought the vahiable manu- 

 script of the Trumbull Dictionary to Washington it was 

 assigned for publication as the first of the new series of 

 bulletins (number 25) . Before the close of the fiscal 

 year the composition was well under way, while Dr Hale 

 was engaged in the preparation of a historical introduction. 

 Another contribution of the first importance to knowl - 

 edge of the aboriginal American languages is the vocab- 

 ulary of the Maya tongue, compiled during the earlier 

 decades of Spanish occupation and well known to scholars 

 (though never printed) as the Diecionario de Motul. 

 Two or three copies of the work are extant in manu- 

 script ; one of these passed into the possession of the late 

 Dr Carlos H. Berendt about the middle of the present 

 century, and in the course of a lengthy stay in Yucatan 

 he undertook to revise and complete the vocabulary and 

 to bring it up to date by the introduction of all Maya 

 terms in modern use. Dr Berendt's additions nearly 

 doubled the volume of the original manuscript, and 

 greatly enhanced its value; unfortunately lie died before 

 his plan for jiublication was carried out. Before his 

 death, however, he turned the manuscript over to the 

 late Dr Daniel G. Brinton, of Philadelphia, in order that 

 it might be published in that ethnologist's Library of 

 Aboriginal American Literature. Finding the work too 

 extensive for his facilities, Dr Brinton made a provisional 



