ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT LXXXI 
In 1866 he was commissioned captain of the Forty-third 
infantry of the regular army, and later the brevet rank of 
colonel was bestowed on him for gallant and meritorious serv- 
ices. His scientific knowledge was early recognized by the 
War Department, and in 1870 he was detailed to execute a 
plan adopted by Congress for the prosecution of meteorological 
researches by the Signal Service, and in this connection fre- 
quently acted as chief signal officer of the army. 
Colonel Mallery’s studies of the ethnology of the Indians of 
North America began with his military service on the frontier. 
In 1876 he was assigned to the command of Fort Rice, Dakota, 
where he became absorbed in the sign language and _pictog- 
raphy of the plains tribes. His writings on these subjects 
soon became well and favorably known, and on the organiza- 
tion of the Bureau of Ethnology in 1879 his services were 
at once engaged by the Director for the prosecution of the 
researches he had so well begun. In 1880 his “Introduction 
to the Study of Sign Language Among the North American 
Indians as Illustrating the Gesture Speech of Mankind,” was 
published, followed immediately by ‘“‘A Collection of Gesture 
Signs and Signals of the North American Indians, with Some 
Comparisons.” The latter volume formed the basis of his 
memoir on ‘‘ Pictographs of the North American Indians,” a 
preliminary paper of 256 pages published in the Fourth Annual 
Report of the Bureau, and the greatly extended memoir of 
807 pages and over 1,300 illustrations bearing the title “ Picture 
Writing of the American Indians”—a monument to his indus- 
try and ingenious research—comprising the body of the Tenth 
Annual Report of the Bureau. Colonel Mallery’s ‘Sign Lan- 
guage Among North American Indians Compared with that 
Among other People and Deaf-Mutes,” which appeared in the 
First Annual Report of the Bureau, was based on his ‘Coliee- 
tion of Gesture Signs and Signals,” but even this monograph of 
290 pages and 300 illustrations was regarded only as prelimi- 
nary, his great work on this subject remaining unfinished at 
the time of his death. 
Colonel Mallery was the first to direct serious attention to 
the investigation of the population of the American aborigines 
16 ETH——YVI 
