96 Trans. Acad. Sct. of St. Louis. 
dian painter, was in St. Louis, accompanying Clark, 
Superintendent of Indian Affairs, on his missions to 
close treaties with the Winnebago, Shawnee, Sac, Fox, 
and Kansas Indians. In these interviews he began the 
series of his Indian paintings. In 1832 he painted the 
portraits of Black Hawk, White Cloud, and their war- 
riors, who were prisoners of the Black Hawk War at 
Jefferson Barracks. In the same year he ascended the 
Missouri river to Fort Union, at the mouth of the Yellow- 
stone, and returned to St. Louis in a canoe with two men, 
steering his frail craft the whole distance of two thou- 
sand miles with his own paddle. On this trip he visited 
and painted ten tribes, among them the Mandans, to 
whom he devoted more time and labor than to any other 
Indian tribe in North America. - 
Catlin’s work was undertaken in a truly scientifi 
spirit, and resulted in leaving to the world the fullest and 
most varied records in pictures and written descriptions 
of the aboriginal tribes as they appeared before their 
customs and ideas had been modified by contact with 
white civilization. In the preface to his catalogue he 
Says: ‘‘Having some years since become fully convineed 
of the rapid decline and certain extinction of the numer- 
ous tribes of the North American Indians, and seeing 
also the vast importance and value which a full pictorial 
history of these interesting but dying people might be 
to future ages—I set out alone, unaided and unadvised, 
resolved (if my life should be spared), by the aid of my 
brush and my pen, to rescue from oblivion so much of 
their primitive looks and customs as the industry and 
ardent enthusiasm of one lifetime could accomplish, and 
set them up in a gallery unique and imperishable, for the 
use and benefit of future ages.’’ 
After many vicissitudes his collection was seized in 
London for debt, but Mr. J oseph Harrison, Jr., of Phila- 
delphia, advanced the funds necessary to release it, and 
took the collection as security. It was stored until 1879, 
when so much of it as had escaped the ravages of time 
