REVIEWS — ^AMERICAN PHILOLOGY. 437 



and similar medicaments is but trying to cure the marsTi fever by 

 "bark and ague drops" without curing the marsh itself by a process 

 of thorough and universal draining. 



REVIEWS. 



Historical and Statistical information respecting the History and 

 prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States ; Collected and 

 prepared under the direction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. 

 Vols I. and II. Philadelphia, 1851. 



The subject of the languages of the aboriginal tribes of the North 

 American continent is one, the importance of which to the comparative 

 philologist, the ethnologist and the philanthropist, can scarcely be over- 

 rated. To the first it opens up a wide field of inquiry, the borders of 

 which have only just begun to be cultivated ; to the second it furnishes 

 a clue which cannot but assist him in his interesting researches, and 

 by the last in the person of the Christian Missionary it cannot be neg- 

 lected without his being justly taxable with unfaithfulness to the all- 

 important work that the great head of the church has assigned to him. 

 Every well-wisher, therefore, to the cause of science or that of Christian 

 civilization must hail with pleasure every work that tends to throw 

 light on a subject of such great interest, but which so few are at all 

 competent to handle ; and for this reason we were disposed to regard 

 favourably the work, the title of which we have placed at the head 

 of this article, though we could not but regret that the information it 

 proposed to give on the subject of the habits and languages of the 

 Indian tribes was buried under the load of six enormous volumes 

 which even those that are rich enough to place on their shelves, 

 cannot always spare the time requisite for such laborious literary 

 excavation. 



To ensure the success of a person who would enrich science with 

 lore drawn from the hitherto unwrought mine of the North American 

 languages, it is absolutely necessary that he possess two qualifications : 

 first a competent knowledge of the class of languages into the philology 

 of which he professes to enter ; and, secondly, a sufficient acquain- 



