414 



sciEJsrcu. 



[Vol. IX., No. 221 



of Mississippi, speak a dialect of tlie same Dakotan 

 stock. Some of theix" remnants I met in November, 

 1886, on Indian Creek, near Lecompte, La. 



Maskdki. — This family is the largest of all repre- 

 sented upon the map, and from the sixteenth to the 

 eighteenth century extended even east of the Savan- 

 nah Eiyer (Ydmassi tribe). The Ynchi were sur- 

 rounded on all sides by the Mask6ki tribes, and one 

 of these, the Seminoles, settled in Florida in the 

 former domain of the Timucua, and west of it, where 

 formerly the Apalaches lived. The upi^er and 

 lower Creeks held the central j)arts of the area ; and 

 the Cha'hta, in three subdivisions, the western parts. 

 The Biloxi, on the coast, belong to the Dakota stock. 

 The majority of the Mask6ki tribes now live in the 

 eastern parts of the Indian Territory, within the 

 area marked with red lines in the north-western 

 corner of the map. 



Taensa. — The historic Taensa people were settled 

 at two places. From their earlier settlements on the 

 Mississippi Eiver, west side, between Vicksburg and 

 Natchez City, they removed to Mobile Bay, threat- 

 ened by an attack from the Chicasa Indians, early in 

 the eighteenth century. In 1762 they went to Loii- 

 isiana with the Alibamus, and are mentioned there, 

 on Bayou Boeuf, as late as 1812, by the Eev. Mr. 

 Schermerhorn (Mass. hist coll.). 



Naktche. — This family were the leading people in 

 the confederacy of Theloel, on St. Catherine Creek, 

 near Natchez City, Miss. Since the war of 1730 they 

 have lived scattered in various countries. 



Tonika, or, as they call themselves. Tunixka, a 

 people once residing at different places near the lower 

 Mississippi River : 1°, on the lower Yazoo Eiver ; 

 2^, on the east shore of the Mississippi Eiver, near 

 the Eed Eiver junction ; S'', in Avoyelles parish, 

 south of the lower Eed Eiver, Louisiana. I studied 

 this vocalic language, new to science, in November, 

 1886, and found it to be independent of all other 

 North American families. 



Add-i. — A small people once living between Sa- 

 bine Eiver and Natchitoches, La., which is still re- 

 membered as belonging to the Caddo confederacy. 



Caddo of north-western Louisiana, and the Assinai 

 or Cenis of middle Texas, spoke dialects closely re- 

 lated to each other, and, with six or seven other 

 tribes, formed a confederacy, the remnants of which 

 now live near Washita Eiver, on the Kiowa, Apache, 

 and Comanche reservation, Indian Territory. 



Shetimasha. — The few Indians of this family still 

 live at one of their old seats, at Charenton, St. 

 Mary's parish. La., while others are farther north on 

 Plaquemine Bayou. 



Atdkapa. — This language seems to have had a 

 pretty extensive area in earlier centuries, for Dr. 

 Sibley stated in 1805 that the Kar^nkawa Indians of 

 the middle Texan coast spoke At&kapa, besides their 

 own language. At present only two dialects are 

 known, both in south-western Louisiana. 



Kardnkawa. — A people of the Texan coast, and 

 settled there until the middle of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury. Of their language, only twenty-five terms are 

 known, published in Globus, a geographic magazine 

 of Braunschweig, 1886 (pp. 123-125, vol. xlix.). 

 The classing of this language as a separate family is 

 only provisional. 



Town-map op the old Cbeek countey. 

 The numerous towns marked on this map from 

 authentic documents subdivide themselves into 



towns of the Upper Creeks on Coosa and Tallapoosa 

 rivers, and of the Lower Creeks on Chatahutchi 

 and Flint rivers. The Koassdti and Alibamu 

 towns lay on Alabama Eiver, below the Coosa- 

 Tallapoosa junction. Witilmka, at the Coosa Falls, 

 which was an Alibamu town, made an exception, 

 being on Coosa Eiver. On Chatahutchi Eiver the 

 upper towns spoke Creek ; the lower ones, from 

 Chiaha dowipvard, spoke Hitchiti ; Yuchi and its 

 colonies on Flint Eiver spoke Yuchi. 



Many Creek towns mentioned in history could 

 not be inserted here, because their location is not 

 known with accuracy, like Tallipsehogy, Chumlnagi, 

 Chatoksofki, Koha-mutki-kdtska, etc. Others had to 

 be omitted for want of space in crowded parts of the 

 map. 



The towns are described in my publication above 

 mentioned (pp. 124-151). Names still used at pres- 

 ent are written in capitals on the map. All names 

 of this and the preceding map are spelled according 

 to my phonetic system of alphabetic writing. 



Albeet S. Gatschet. 



Specific variations in the skeletons of 

 vertebrates. 



When I speak of the specific variations as they 

 occur in the skeletons of vertebrates, I refer to those 

 appreciable differences in form which we find to 

 exist when we come to compare any two skeletons of 

 the same species, or, as for that matter, a series of 

 skeletons of the same species. As in every thing 

 else, as we are well aware, no two skeletons, even of 

 the same species, are exactly alike ; but I have rea- 

 son to believe that it is not generally appreciated 

 how great this degree of difference may be some- 

 times. It has always been one of the chief draw- 

 backs to the study of human craniology, that the 

 skulls in hoino, representing the same race, have fre- 

 quently been found to be so thoroughly unlike, both 

 in measurement and in general characteristics. We 

 wotild come across skulls of Caucasians, with wonder- 

 fully low cranial capacities, a small facial angle, 

 and, indeed, having perhaps many of the racial 

 characters as they might occur in the skull of a 

 Malay. It will be my object in the present letter to 

 show that these differences are quite as marked 

 among the species that go to make up the classes 

 below man, as they are among the skeletons of the 

 same species of men ; and I will also present a num- 

 ber of examples chosen from the lower vertebrates 

 to illustrate this point. 



People who have given no special thought to this 

 matter are led to believe that when they have care- 

 fully described the skeleton of any vertebrate, such 

 a description will answer for the skeleton of that 

 species for all time, provided specimens of the same 

 age and habitat be chosen for comparison, and the 

 original description was accurately recorded. Such 

 persons have often amused me by the great stress 

 they lay upon the numerous measurements they 

 make, and the extraordinary pains they take to have 

 them of hair-splitting accuracy for the skull or 

 other parts of any skeleton they may be describing. 

 These measurements, of course, are of very great im- 

 portance, but we must bear in mind always that they 

 are really but fractions of some standard which we 

 should aim to eventually obtain in every case ; by 

 this I mean a standard obtained, say, by taking the 



