DEPARTMENT OF THH INTERIOR, 
Unitep STaTes GEOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL 
Survey or THE Rocky Mountain Recon, 
Washington, D. C., November 10, 1876. 
Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith volume III of the Contri- 
butions to North American Ethnology, being a Report on the Tribes of 
California, by Mr. Stephen Powers, with vocabularies collected by various 
persons and edited’ by myself. A map will be found with the volume 
showing the geographic distribution of the several linguistic stocks of 
which the report treats, and of others that will receive attention in a sub- 
sequent volume—these latter being found only in part within the territory 
embraced in the map. 
The opinion which Mr. Powers expresses concerning the former Indian 
population does not seem to me to be well sustained. It cannot be doubted 
that Eastern California and Oregon were, at the advent of the white man, 
more densely populated than any other portion of the United States, and 
that the peculiar conditions under which the settlement of the region was 
made resulted in the destruction of a great number of its former inhabit- 
ants. In fact, I am of the opinion that more Indians were destroyed in 
this part of the country than in the remaining portion of the United States, 
and yet I believe that Mr. Powers overestimates the population. 
Believing this, I wrote him, asking him for some modification of his 
statements, and gave my reasons therefor, and further enforced my views 
by giving him the opinions of others who had made careful examination 
of the question of the former population of the Indians of this country, 
and I expressed the opinion that he would subject himself to unfavorable 
criticism unless his statements were modified. In reply to my letter the 
following was received. It is so vigorous and characteristic that I take 
the liberty of quoting it here: 
