INTEODUCTIOI^. 
The primary purpose sought to be carried out iu the followiug pages 
is an alphabetic list of persons who have written in or upon the Indian 
languages of Forth America, with full and accurate titles of all editions 
of their writings, collations of the same, and a descriptive table of lin- 
guistic contents. 
But few departures from the ordinary rules of cataloguing have been 
made, the principal one being that translators of matter into the Indian 
tongues have been treated as authors. Anonymous works, both printed 
and manuscript, have been entered under the full name of the author 
when known, with a cross-reference in the case of printed works from 
the first word of the title. When the author is unknown, printed 
works, and manuscripts with authentic titles, appear under the first 
word of the title; manuscripts without titles, or with f\ictitious titles, 
under the name of the Indian language to which they pertain. Societies 
have been treated as authors of the journals, transactions, proceedings, 
etc., issued by them, the chartered name being given whenever possible. 
Titles of works containing linguistics by others than the author of the 
work appear in full under the name of the latter, followed by brief sub- 
entry of the linguistic authors; the full titles of the linguistic portions 
appearing in full under their respective authors, followed by brief sub- 
entry of the author of the work itself. In these sub entries the name 
of the author, or other controlling word in the primary alphabetic ar- 
rangement, is printed in black-face type. This use of antique type as 
a cro5S-reference device is observed throughout the descriptive and 
commentative matter following the title. 
While in general a uniform system of entering titles, collating books, 
and describing contents has been followed, a number of tentative de- 
partures have been made from time to time, as experience suggested, for 
guidance iu the preparation of the final monograph. These changes 
are all slight, and it is thought none of them call for comment, except, 
perhaps, one— that of translating or not translating extracts from 
authors who have written in languages other than English. In the 
opinion of the compiler the advantages of translating these notes into 
English— the language of the future— more than outweigh those sup- 
posed to be gained from quoting the original verbatim; upon this point, 
however, he is open to conviction. These renuirks do not apply, of 
course, to the transcription of titles, the spelling of Indian names, and 
the quotation of linguistic contents of a work, but only to descriptive 
extracts and biographies from catalogues and bibliographies. 
